hbl,  stx 


PS  1772.M36  1898 
Mfn  without  a  country  and  other  ta 


T153  Dommsa  5 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 


BY 


EDWARD   EVERETT    HALE. 


ILLUSTRATED   EDITION. 


PORTRAIT    OF    THE    AUTHOR. 


Illustrated  by  F.  T.  Merrill.     Square  i2mo.     Full  gilt. 
Cloth.     Price,  $1.50. 

This  is  one  of  the  very  few  books  that  every  American  at  least  ten 
years  of  age  ought  to  read  without  fail ;  and  the  present  edition  is  good 
enough  for  the  best  man  or  the  loveliest  woman  in  all  this  blessed  land. 
—  Boston  Beacon. 


ROBERTS    BROTHERS  .       .   BOSTON, 


V 


I? 

ft'. 

THE 


Man  Without  a  Country 


AND 


OTHER    TALES. 


BY 


EDWARD   E.   HALE, 


AUTHOR  OF    "IN    HIS   NAME,"     "  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN,"     "  HOW   TO  DO    IT." 
'WHAT   CAREER,"    ETC.,    ETC. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1898. 


Copyright,  1868,  1868, 
!y    Ticknor    and    Fields. 


Copyright,  1891, 
By  Edward  Everett  Hale. 


©tottattg  Press: 
John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS. 

— •— 

PAQS 

The  Man  without  a  Country     ....              .  5 

The  Last  of  the  Florida      ........  48 

A  Piece  of  Possible  History 59 

The  South  American  Editor 79 

The  Old  and  the  New,  Face  to  Face    ....  101 

The  Dot  and  Line  Alphabet 117 

The  Last  Voyage  of  the  Resolute 131 

My  Double,  and  how  he  undid  me 172 

The  Children  of  the  Public 200 

The  Skeleton  in  the  Closet  ........  257 

Christmas  Waits  in  Boston f     .    .  274 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A   COUNTEY. 


FROM   THE    INGHAM   PAPERS. 

This  story  was  written  in  the  summer  of  1863,  as  a  contri- 
bution, however  humble,  towards  the  formation  of  a  just  and  true 
national  sentiment,  or  sentiment  of  love  to  the  nation.  It  was 
at  the  time  when  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  been  sent  across  the 
border.  It  was  my  wish,  indeed,  that  the  story  might  be  printed 
before  the  autumn  elections  of  that  year,  —  as  my  "  testimony  " 
regarding  the  principles  involved  in  them,  —  but  circumstances 
delayed  its  publication  till  the  December  number  of  the  Atlantic 
appeared. 

It  is  wholly  a  fiction,  "  founded  on  faot."  The  facts  on  which 
it  is  founded  are  these,  —  that  Aaron  Burr  sailed  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  in  1805,  again  in  1806,  and  was  tried  for  treason  in 
1807.  The  rest,  with  one  exception  to  be  noticed,  is  all  ficti- 
tious. 

It  was  my  intention  that  the  story  should  have  been  published 
with  no  author's  name,  other  than  that  of  Captain  Frederic  Ing- 
ham, U.  S.  N.  Whether  writing  under  his  name  or  my  own,  I 
have  taken  no  liberties  with  history  other  than  such  as  every 
writer  of  fiction  is  privileged  to  take,  —  indeed,  must  take,  if  fio 
tion  is  to  be  written  at  all. 

The  story  having  been  once  published,  it  passed  out  of  my 
hands.  From  that  moment  it  has  gradually  acquired  different 
accessories,  for  which  I  am  not  responsible.  Thus  I  have  heard  it 
saidr  that  at  one  bureau  of  the  Navy  Department  they  say  that 


6  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

Nolan  was  pardoned,  in  fact,  and  returned  home  to  die.  At  an- 
other bureau,  I  am  told,  the  answer  to  questions  is,  that,  though 
it  is  true  that  an  officer  was  kept  abroad  all  his  life,  his  name  was 
not  Nolan.  A  venerable  friend  of  mine  in  Boston,  who  discredits 
all  tradition,  still  recollects  this  "  Nolan  court-martial."  One  of 
the  most  accurate  of  my  younger  friends  had  noticed  Nolan's 
death  in  the  newspaper,  but  recollected  "  that  it  was  in  Septem- 
ber, and  not  in  August."  A  lady  in  Baltimore  writes  me,  I  be- 
lieve in  good  faith,  that  Nolan  has  two  widowed  sisters  residing 
in  that  neighborhood.  A  correspondent  of  the  Philadelphia 
Despatch  believed  "  the  article  untrue,  as  the  United  States  cor- 
vette '  Levant '  was  lost  at  sea  nearly  three  years  since,  between 
San  Francisco  and  San  Juan."  I  may  remark  that  this  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  place  of  her  loss  rather  adds  to  the  probability 
of  her  turning  up  after  three  years  in  Lat.  2°  11'  S.,  Long.  131° 
W.  A  writer  in  the  New  Orleans  Picayune,  in  a  careful  histori- 
cal paper,  explained  at  length  that  I  had  been  mistaken  all 
through ;  that  Philip  Nolan  never  went  to  sea,  but  to  Texas ; 
that  there  he  was  shot  in  battle,  March  21,  1801,  and  by  orders 
from  Spain  every  fifth  man  of  his  party  was  to  be  shot,  had  they 
not  died  in  prison.  Fortunately,  however,  he  left  his  papers  and 
maps,  which  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  friend  of  the  Picayune's 
correspondent.  This  friend  proposes  to  publish  them,  —  and  the 
public  will  then  ha  re,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  the  true  history  of  Philip 
Nolan,  the  man  without  a  country. 

With  all  these  continuations,  however,  I  have  nothing  to  do. 
I  can  only  repeat  that  my  Philip  Nolan  is  pure  fiction.  I  cannot 
send  his  scrap-book  to  my  friend  who  asks  for  it,  because  I  have 
it  not  to  send. 

1  remembered,  when  I  was  collecting  material  for  my  story,  that 
in  General  Wilkinson's  galimatias,  which  he  calls  his  "  Memoirs," 
is  frequent  reference  to  a  business  partner  of  his,  of  the  name 
of  Nolan,  who,  in  the  very  beginning  of  this  century,  was 
killed  in  Texas.     Whenever  Wilkinson  found  himself  in  rathei 


THE  MAN    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY.  7 

a  deeper  bog  than  usual,  he  used  to  justify  himself  by  say* 
ing  that  he  could  not  explain  such  or  such  a  charge  because 
**  the  papers  referring  to  it  were  lost  when  Mr.  Nolan  was  im- 
prisoned in  Texas."  Finding  this  mythical  character  in  the 
mythical  legends  of  a  mythical  time,  I  took  the  liberty  to  give 
him  a  cousin,  rather  more  mythical,  whose  adventures  should  be 
on  the  seas.  I  had  the  impression  that  Wilkinson's  friend  was 
named  Stephen,  —  and  as  such  I  spoke  of  him  in  the  early 
editions  of  this  story.  But  long  after  this  was  printed,  I  found 
that  the  New  Orleans  paper  was  right  in  saying  that  the  Texan 
hero  was  named  Philip  Nolan. 

If  I  had  forgotten  him  and  his  name,  I  can  only  say  that  Mr. 
Jefferson,  who  did  not  forget  him,  abandoned  him  and  his,  — 
when  the  Spanish  Government  murdered  him  and  imprisoned  his 
associates  for  life.  I  have  done  my  best  to  repair  my  fault,  and 
to  recall  to  memory  a  brave  man,  by  telling  the  story  of  his  fate, 
in  a  book  called  "  Philip  Nolan's  Friends."  To  the  historical 
statements  in  that  book  the  reader  is  referred.  That  the  Texan 
Philip  Nolan  played  an  important,  though  forgotten,  part  in  our 
national  history,  the  reader  will  understand,  —  when  I  say  that 
the  terror  of  the  Spanish  Government,  excited  by  his  adventures, 
governed  all  their  policy  regarding  Texas  and  Louisiana  also, 
till  the  last  territory  was  no  longer  their  own. 

If  any  reader  considers  the  invention  of  a  cousin  too  great  a 
liberty  to  take  in  fiction,  I  venture  to  remind  him  that  "  'T  is 
sixty  years  since";  and  that  I  should  have  the  highest  authority 
in  literature  even  for  much  greater  liberties  taken  with  annals  so 
far  removed  from  our  time. 

A  Boston  paper,  in  noticing  the  story  of  "  My  Double,"  con- 
tained in  another  part  of  this  collection,  said  it  was  highly  im- 
probable. I  have  always  agreed  with  that  critic.  I  confess  1 
have  the  same  opinion  of  this  story  of  Philip  Nolan.  It  passes  on 
ships  which  had  no  existence,  is  vouched  for  by  officers  who  never 
lived.  Its  hero  is  in  two  or  three  places  at  the  same  time,  under 
a  process  wholly  impossible  under  any  conceivable  administra* 


8  THE    MAN    WITHOUT    A    COUNTRY. 

tion  of  affairs.     When  my  friend,  Mr.  W.  H.  Reed,  sent  me 

from  City  Point,  in  Virginia,  the  record  of  the  death  of  Philip 

Nolan,  a  negro  from  Louisiana,  who  died  in  the  cause  of  his 

country  in  service  in  a  colored  regiment,  I  felt  that  he  had 

done  something  to  atone  for  the  imagined  guilt  of  the  imagined 

namesake  of  his  unfortunate  god-father. 

E.  E.  H. 
Roxburt,  Mass.,  March  20,  1886. 


I  suppose  that  very  few  casual  readers  of  the  New 
York  Herald  of  August  13th  observed,  in  an  obscure 
corner,  among  the  u  Deaths,"  the  announcement,  — 

"Nolan.     Died,  on  board  U.  S.  Corvette  Levant,  Lat.  2°  11'  S., 
Long.  131°  W.,  on  the  11th  of  May,  Philip  Nolan." 

I  happened  to  observe  it,  because  I  was  stranded  at 
the  old  Mission-House  in  Mackinaw,  waiting  for  a 
Lake  Superior  steamer  which  did  not  choose  to  come, 
and  I  was  devouring  to  the  very  stubble  all  the  cur- 
rent literature  I  could  get  hold  of,  even  down  to  the 
deaths  and  marriages  in  the  Herald.  My  memory  for 
names  and  people  is  good,  and  the  reader  will  see,  as 
he  goes  on,  that  I  had  reason  enough  to  remember 
Philip  Nolan.  There  are  hundreds  of  readers  who 
would  have  paused  at  that  announcement,  if  the  officer 
of  the  Levant  who  reported  it  had  chosen  to  make  it 
thus :  — "  Died,  May  11th,  The  Man  without  a 
Country."  For  it  was  as  "  The  Man  without  a 
Country"  that  poor  Philip  Nolan  had  generally  been 
known  by  the  officers  who  had  him  in  charge  during 
some  fifty  years,  as,  indeed,  by  all  the  men  who  sailed 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  9 

under  them.  I  dare  say  there  is  many  a  man  who  has 
taken  wine  with  him  once  a  fortnight,  in  a  three  years' 
cruise,  who  never  knew  that  his  name  was  "  Nolan," 
or  whether  the  poor  wretch  had  any  name  at  all. 

There  can  now  be  no  possible  harm  in  telling  this 
poor  creature's  story,  Reason  enough  there  has  been 
till  now,  ever  since  Madison's  administration  went  out 
in  1817,  for  very  strict  secrecy,  the  secrecy  of  honor 
itself,  among  the  gentlemen  of  the  navy  who  have  had 
Nolan  in  successive  charge.  And  certainly  it  speaks 
well  for  the  esprit  de  corps  of  the  profession,  and  the 
personal  honor  of  its  members,  that  to  the  press  this 
man's  story  has  been  wholly  unknown,  —  and,  I  think, 
to  the  country  at  large  also.  I  have  reason  to  think, 
from  some  investigations  I  made  in  the  Naval  Archives 
when  I  was  attached  to  the  Bureau  of  Construction, 
that  every  official  report  relating  to  him  was  burned 
when  Ross  burned  the  public  buildings  at  Washington. 
One  of  the  Tuckers,  or  possibly  one  of  the  Watsons, 
had  Nolan  in  charge  at  the  end  of  the  war ;  and  when, 
on  returning  from  his  cruise,  he  reported  at  Washing- 
ton to  one  of  the  Crowninshields,  —  who  was  in  the 
Navy  Department  when  he  came  home,  —  he  found 
that  the  Department  ignored  the  whole  business. 
W nether  they  really  knew  nothing  about  it  or  whether 
it  was  a  "  Non  mi  ricordo"  determined  on  as  a  piece 
of  policy,  I  do  not  know.  But  this  I  do  know,  that 
since  1817,  and  possibly  before,  no  naval  officer  ha? 
mentioned  Nolan  in  his  report  of  a  cruise. 

1* 


10  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

But,  as  I  say,  there  is  no  need  for  secrecy  any 
longer.  And  now  the  poor  creature  is  dead,  it  seems 
to  me  worth  while  to  tell  a  little  of  his  Story,  by  way 
of  showing  young  Americans  of  to-day  what  it  is  to  be 
A  Man  without  a  Country. 

Philip  Nolan  was  as  fine  a  young  officer  as  there 
was  in  the  "  Legion  of  the  West,"  as  the  Western 
division  of  our  army  was  then  called.  When  Aaron 
Burr  made  his  first  dashing  expedition  down  to  New 
Orleans  in  1805,  at  Fort  Massac,  or  somewhere 
above  on  the  river,  he  met,  as  the  Devil  would  have 
it,  this  gay,  dashing,  bright  young  fellow,  at  some  din- 
ner-party, I  think.  Burr  marked  him,  talked  to  him, 
walked  with  him,  took  him  a  day  or  two's  voyage  in 
his  flat-boat,  and,  in  short,  fascinated  him.  For  the 
next  year,  barrack-life  was  very  tame  to  poor  Nolan. 
He  occasionally  availed  himself  of  the  permission  the 
great  man  had  given  him  to  write  to  him.  Long,  high- 
worded,  stilted  letters  the  poor  boy  wrote  and  rewrote 
and  copied.  But  never  a  line  did  he  have  in  reply  from 
the  gay  deceiver.  The  other  boys  in  the  garrison 
sneered  at  him,  because  he  sacrificed  in  this  unrequited 
affection  for  a  politician  the  time  which  they  devoted  to 
Monongahela,  hazard,  and  high-low-jack.  Bourbon, 
euchre,  and  poker  were  still  unknown.  But  one  day 
Nolan  had  his  revenge.  This  time  Burr  came  down  the 
river,  not  as  an  attorney  seeking  a  place  for  his  office, 
but  as  a  disguised  conqueror.     He  had  defeated  I  know 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.        11 

not  how  many  district-attorneys  ;  he  had  dined  at  1 
know  not  how  many  public  dinners  ;  he  had  been  her- 
alded in  I  know  not  how  many  Weekly  Arguses,  and 
it  was  rumored  that  he  had  an  army  behind  him  and  an 
empire  before  hirn.  It  was  a  great  day  —  his  arrival  — 
to  poor  Nolan.  Burr  had  not  been  at  the  fort  an  hour 
before  he  sent  for  him.  That  evening  he  asked  Nolan 
to  take  him  out  in  his  skiff,  to  show  him  a  canebrake 
or  a  cotton-wood  tree,  as  he  said,  —  really  to  seduce 
him ;  and  by  the  time  the  sail  was  over,  Nolan  was  en- 
listed body  and  soul.  From  that  time,  though  he  did  not 
yet  know  it,  he  lived  as  a  man  without  a  country. 

What  Burr  meant  to  do  I  know  no  more  than  you, 
dear  reader.  It  is  none  of  our  business  just  now.  On- 
ly, when  the  grand  catastrophe  came,  and  Jefferson  and 
the  House  of  Virginia  of  that  day  undertook  to  break 
on  the  wheel  all  the  possible  Clarences  of  the  then 
House  of  York,  by  the  great  treason-trial  at  Richmond, 
some  of  the  lesser  fry  in  that  distant  Mississippi  Val- 
ley, which  was  farther  from  us  than  Puget's  Sound  is 
to-day,  introduced  the  like  novelty  on  their  provincial 
stage,  and,  to  while  away  the  monotony  of  the  summer 
at  Fort  Adams,  got  up,  for  spectacles,  a  string  of  court- 
martials  on  the  officers  there.  One  and  another  of 
the  colonels  and  majors  were  tried,  and,  to  fill  out  the 
list,  little  Nolan,  against  whom,  Heaven  knows,  there 
was  evidence  enough,  —  that  he  was  sick  of  the  ser- 
vice, had  been  willing  to  be  false  to  it,  and  would 
have  obeyed  any  order  to  march  any- whit  her  \ritb 


12  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

any  one  who  would  follow  him  had  the  order  been 
signed,  u  By  command  of  His  Exc.  A.  Burr."  The 
courts  dragged  on.  The  big  flies  escaped,  —  rightly 
for  all  I  know.  Nolan  was  proved  guilty  enough,  as  I 
say ;  yet  you  and  I  would  never  have  heard  of  him, 
reader,  but  that,  when  the  president  of  the  court 
asked  him  at  the  close,  whether  he  wished  to  say  any- 
thing to  show  that  he  had  always  been  faithful  to  the 
United  States,  he  cried  out,  in  a  fit  of  frenzy,  — 

"  D — n  the  United  States !     I  wish  I  may  never 
hear  of  the  United  States  again !  " 

I  suppose  he  did  not  know  how  the  words  shocked 
old  Colonel  Morgan,  who  was  holding  the  court. 
Half  the  officers  who  sat  in  it  had  served  through  the 
Revolution,  and  their  lives,  not  to  say  their  necks,  had 
been  risked  for  the  very  idea  which  he  so  cavalierly 
cursed  in  his  madness.  He,  on  his  part,  had  grown 
up  in  the  West  of  those  days,  in  the  midst  of  "  Spanish 
plot,"  "Orleans  plot,"  and  all  the  rest.  He  had  been 
educated  on  a  plantation  where  the  finest  company 
was  a  Spanish  officer  or  a  French  merchant  from  Or- 
leans. His  education,  such  as  it  was,  had  been  per- 
fected in  commercial  expeditions  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  I 
think  he  told  me  his  father  once  hired  an  Englishman 
to  be  a  private  tutor  for  a  winter  on  the  plantation. 
He  l^ad  spent  half  his  youth  with  an  older  brother, 
hunting  horses  in  Texas;  and,  in  a  word,  to  him 
"  United  States  "  was  scarcely  a  reality.  Yet  he  had 
been  fed  by  u  United  States '"  por  all  the  vears  since 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY-        13 

he  had  been  in  the  army.  He  had  sworn  on  his  faith 
as  a  Christian  to  be  true  to  "  United  States."  It  was 
"  United  States "  which  gave  him  the  uniform  he 
wore,  and  the  sword  by  his  side.  Nay,  my  poor  No- 
lan, it  was  only  because  "  United  States  "  had  picked 
you  out  first  as  one  of  her  own  confidential  men  of 
honor  that  "  A.  Burr "  cared  for  you  a  straw  more 
than  for  the  flat-boat  men  who  sailed  his  ark  for  him. 
I  do  not  excuse  Nolan  ;  I  only  explain  to  the  reader 
why  he  damned  his  country,  and  wished  he  might 
never  hear  her  name  again. 

He  never  did  hear  her  name  but  once  again.  From 
that  moment,  September  23,  1807,  till  the  day  he 
died,  May  11,  1863,  he  never  heard  her  name  again. 
For  that  half-century  and  more  he  was  a  man  without 
a  country. 

Old  Morgan,  as  I  said,  was  terribly  shocked.  If 
Nolan  had  compared  George  Washington  to  Benedict 
Arnold,  or  had  cried,  "  God  save  King  George," 
Morgan  would  not  have  felt  worse.  He  called  the 
court  into  his  private  room,  and  returned  in  fifteen 
minutes,  with  a  face  like  a  sheet,  to  say,  — 

"  Prisoner,  hear  the  sentence  of  the  Court !  The 
Court  decides,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Presi- 
dent, that  you  never  hear  the  name  of  the  United 
States  again." 

Nolan  laughed.  But  nobody  else  laughed.  Old 
Morgan  was  too  solemn,  and  the  whole  room  was 
hushed  dead  as  night  for  a  minute.  Even  Nolan  lest 
hia  swagger  in  a  moment.     Then  Morgan  added,  — 


14  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

"  Mr.  Marshal,  take  the  prisoner  to  Orleans  in  an 
armed  boat,  and  deliver  him  to  the  naval  commander 
there." 

The  Marshal  gave  his  orders  and  the  prisoner  was 
taken  out  of  court. 

"Mr.  Marshal,"  continued  old  Morgan,  "see  that 
no  one  mentions  the  United  States  to  the  prisoner. 
Mr.  Marshal,  make  my  respects  to  Lieutenant  Mitch- 
ell at  Orleans,  and  request  him  to  order  that  no  one 
shall  mention  the  United  States  to  the  prisoner  while 
he  is  on  board  ship.  You  will  receive  your  written 
orders  from  the  officer  on  duty  here  this  evening. 
The  court  is  adjourned  without  day." 

I  have  always  supposed  that  Colonel  Morgan  him- 
self took  the  proceedings  of  the  court  to  Washington 
City,  and  explained  them  to  Mr.  Jefferson.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  President  approved  them,  —  certain, 
that  is,  if  I  may  believe  the  men  who  say  they  have 
seen  his  signature.  Before  the  Nautilus  got  round 
from  New  Orleans  to  the  Northern  Atlantic  coast 
with  the  prisoner  on  board  the  sentence  had  been  ap- 
proved, and  he  was  a  man  without  a  country. 

The  plan  then  adopted  was  substantially  the  same 
which  was  necessarily  followed  ever  after.  Perhaps 
it  was  suggested  by  the  necessity  of  sending  him  by 
water  from  Fort  Adams  and  Orleans.  The  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  —  it  must  have  been  the  first  Crownin- 
shield,  though  he  is  a  man  I  do  not  remember  —  was 
requested  to  put  Nolan  on  board  a  government  vessel 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.  15 

bound  on  a  long  cruise,  and  to  direct  that  he  should 
be  only  so  far  confined  there  as  to  make  it  certain  that 
he  never  saw  or  heard  of  the  country.  We  had  few 
long  cruises  then,  and  the  navy  was  very  much  out 
of  favor ;  and  as  almost  all  of  this  story  is  traditional, 
as  I  have  explained,  I  do  not  know  certainly  what 
his  first  cruise  was.  But  the  commander  to  whom  he 
was  intrusted,  —  perhaps  it  was  Tingey  or  Shaw,  though 
I  think  it  was  one  of  the  younger  men,  —  we  are  all 
old  enough  now,  —  regulated  the  etiquette  and  the 
precautions  of  the  affair,  and  according  to  his  scheme 
they  were  carried  out,  I  suppose,  till  Nolan  died. 

When  I  was  second  officer  of  the  "  Intrepid,"  some 
thirty  years  after,  I  saw  the  original  paper  of  instruc- 
tions. I  have  been  sorry  ever  since  that  I  did  not 
copy  the  whole  of  it.  It  ran,  however,  much  in  this 
way :  — 

"  Washington  (with  a  date,  which 
must  have  been  late  in  1807). 

"  Sir,  —  You  will  receive  from  Lieutenant  Neale 
the  person  of  Philip  Nolan,  late  a  Lieutenant  in  the 
United  States  Army. 

"  This  person  on  his  trial  by  court-martial  expressed 
with  an  oath  the  wish  that  he  might  '  never  hear  of 
the  United  States  again.' 

"  The  Court  sentenced  him  to  have  his  wish  ful- 
filled. 

"  For  the  present,  the  execution  of  the  order  is  ixj 
trusted  by  the  President  to  this  Department. 


16  THE   MAN    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

"You  will  take  the  prisoner  on  board  your  ship, 
and  keep  him  there  with  such  precautions  as  shall  pre- 
vent his  escape.- 

'l  You  will  provide  him  with  such  quarters,  rations, 
and  clothing  as  would  be  proper  for  an  officer  of  his 
late  rank,  if  he  were  a  passenger  on  your  vessel  on 
the  business  of  his  Government. 

"  The  gentlemen  on  board  will  make  any  arrange- 
ments agreeable  to  themselves  regarding  his  society. 
He  is  to  be  exposed  to  no  indignity  of  any  kind,  nof 
is  he  ever  unnecessarily  to  be  reminded  that  he  is  a 
prisoner. 

"  But  under  no  ircumstances  is  he  ever  to  hear  of 
his  country  or  to  see  any  information  regarding  it, 
and  you  will  specially  caution  all  the  officers  under 
your  command  to  take  care,  that,  in  the  various  in- 
dulgences which  may  be  granted,  this  rule,  in  which 
his  punishment  is  involved,  shall  not  be  broken. 

"  It  is  the  intention    of  the    Government  that  he 
shall  never  again  see  the  country  which  he  has  dis- 
owned.    Before  the  end  of  your  cruise  you  will  re- 
fieive  orders  which  will  give  effect  to  this  intention. 
"  Respectfully  yours, 

"  W.  Southard,  for  the 

Secretary  of  the  Navy." 

If  I  had  only  preserved  the  whole  of  this  paper, 
there  would  be  no  break  in  the  beginning  of  my  sketch 
of  this  story.     For  Captain  Shaw,  if  it  were  he,  handed 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  17 

it  to  his  successor  in  the  charge,  and  he  to  his,  and  I 
suppose  the  commander  of  the  Levant  has  it  to-day  as 
his  authority  for  keeping  this  man  in  this  mild  cus- 
tody. 

The  rule  adopted  on  board  the  ships  on  which  I 
have  met  "  the  man  without  a  country  "  was,  I  think, 
transmitted  from  the  beginning.  No  mess  liked  to 
have  him  permanently,  because  his  presence  cut  off  all 
talk  of  home  or  of  the  prospect  of  return,  of  politics 
or  letters,  of  peace  or  of  war,  —  cut  off  more  than 
half  the  talk  men  liked  to  have  at  sea.  But  it  was  al- 
ways thought  too  hard  that  he  should  never  meet  the 
rest  of  us,  except  to  touch  hats,  and  we  finally  sank 
into  one  system.  He  was  not  permitted  to  talk  with 
the  men,  unless  an  officer  was  by.  With  officers  he 
had  unrestrained  intercourse,  as  far  as  they  and  he  chose. 
But  he  grew  shy,  though  he  had  favorites :  I  was  one. 
Then  the  captain  always  asked  him  to  dinner  on  Mon- 
day. Every  mess  in  succession  took  up  the  invitation  in 
its  turn.  According  to  the  size  of  the  ship,  you  had  him 
at  your  mess  more  or  less  often  at  dinner.  His  break- 
fast he  ate  in  his  own  state-room,  —  he  always  had  a 
state-room,  —  which  was  where  a  sentinel  or  some- 
body on  the  watch  could  see  the  door.  And  whatever 
else  he  ate  or  drank,  he  ate  or  drank  alone.  Some- 
times, when  the  marines  or  sailors  had  any  special 
jollification,  they  were  permitted  to  invite  "Plain- 
Buttons,"  as  they  called  him.  Then  Nolan  was  sent 
with  some  officer,  and  the  men  were  forbidden  to  speak 


18         THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

of  home  while  he  was  there.  I  believe  the  theory  was 
that  the  sight  of  his  punishment  did  them  good.  They 
called  him  "  Plain-Buttons,"  because,  while  he  always 
chose  to  wear  a  regulation  army-uniform,  he  was  not 
permitted  to  wear  the  army-button,  for  the  reason  that 
it  bore  either  the  initials  or  the  insignia  of  the  country 
he  had  disowned. 

I  remember,  soon  after  I  joined  the  navy,  I  was  on 
shore  with  some  of  the  older  officers  from  our  ship  and 
from  the  Brandywine,  which  we  had  met  at  Alexan- 
dria. We  had  leave  to  make  a  party  and  go  up  to 
Cairo  and  the  Pyramids.  As  we  jogged  along  (you 
went  on  donkeys  then),  some  of  the  gentlemen  (we 
boys  called  them  "  Dons,"  but  the  phrase  was  long 
since  changed)  fell  to  talking  about  Nolan,  and  some 
one  told  the  system  which  was  adopted  from  the  first 
about  his  books  and  other  reading.  As  he  was  almost 
never  permitted  to  go  on  shore,  even  though  the  vessel 
lay  in  port  for  months,  his  time  at  the  best  hung 
heavy ;  and  everybody  was  permitted  to  lend  him 
books,  if  they  were  not  published  in  America  and 
made  no  allusion  to  it.  These  were  common  enough 
in  the  old  days,  when  people  in  the  other  hemisphere 
talked  of  the  United  States  as  little  as  we  do  of  Para- 
guay. He  had  almost  all  the  foreign  papers  that  came 
into  the  ship,  sooner  or  later ;  only  somebody  must  go 
over  them  first,  and  cut  out  any  advertisement  or 
stray  paragraph  that  alluded  to  America.  This  was  a 
little  cruel  sometimes,  when  the  back  of  what  was  cut 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT  A   COUNTRY.  19 

out  mig/it  be  as  innocent  as  Hesiod.      Right  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  Napoleon's  battles,  or  one  of  Can- 
ning's speeches,  poor  Nolan  would  find  a  great  hole, 
because  on  the  back  of  the  page  of  that  paper  there 
had  been  an  advertisement  of  a  packet  for  New  York, 
or  a  scrap  from  the  President's  message.     I  say  this 
was  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  this  plan,  which 
afterwards  I  had  enough  and  more  than  enough  to  do 
with.     I  remember  it,  because  poor  Phillips,  who  was 
of  the  party,  as  soon  as  the  allusion  to  reading  was 
made,  told  a  story  of  something  which  happened  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  on  Nolan's  first  voyage ;  and  it  is 
the  only  thing  I  ever  knew  of  that  voyage.     They  had 
touched  at  the  Cape,  and  had  done  the  civil  thing  with 
the  English  Admiral  and  the  fleet,  and  then,  leaving 
for  a  long  cruise  up  the  Indian  Oceai,  Phillips  had 
borrowed  a  lot  of  English  books  from  an  officer,  which, 
in  those  days,  as  indeed  in  these,  was  qu-te  a  windfall. 
Among  them,  as  the  Devil  would  order,  was  the  "  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  which  they  had  all  of  them 
heard  of,  but  which  most  of  them  had  never  seen.     I 
think  it  could  not  have  been  published  long.     Well, 
nobody  thought  there  could  be  any  risk  of  anything 
national  in  that,  though  Phillips  swore  old  Shaw  had 
cut  out  the  "  Tempest  "  from  Shakespeare  before  he  let 
Nolan  have  it,  because  he  said  "  the  Bermudas  ought  to 
be  ours,  and,  by  Jove,  should  be  one  day."     So  Nolan 
was  permitted  to  join  the  circle  one  afternoon  when  a 
lot  of  them  sat  on  deck  smoking  and  reading  aloud. 


20  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

People  do  not  do  such  things  so  often  now  *  but  when 
I  was  young  we  got  rid  of  a  great  deal  of  time  so. 
Well,  so  it  happened  that  in  his  turn  Nolan  took  the 
book  and  read  to  the  others ;  and  he  read  very  well, 
as  I  know.  Nobody  in  the  circle  knew  a  line  of  the. 
poem,  only  it  was  all  magic  and  Border  chivalry,  and 
was  ten  thousand  years  ago.  Poor  Nolan  read  steadily 
through  the  fifth  canto,  stopped  a  minute  and  drank 
something,  and  then  began,  without  a  thought  of  what 
was  coming,  — 

"  Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said,"  — 

It  seems  impossible  to  us  that  anybody  ever  heard  this 
for  the  first  time  ;  but  all  these  fellows  did  then,  and 
poor  Nolan  himself  went  on,  still  unconsciously  or 
mechanically,  — 

"  This  is  my  own,  my  native  land !  " 
Then  they  all  saw  something  was  to  pay  ;  but  he  ex- 
pected to  get  through,  I  suppose,  turned  a  little  pale, 
but  plunged  on,  — 

"  Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burned, 
As  home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turned 

From  wandering  on  a  ft^eign  strand  1  — 
If  such  there  breathe,  go,  mark  him  well,"  — ■ 

By  this  time  the  men  were  &i\  beside  themselves,  wish- 
ing there  was  any  way  to  make  him  turn  over  two 
pages ;  but  he  had  not  qu:te  presence  of  mind  for 
that  ;  he  gagged  a  little,  colored  crimson,  and  stag- 
gered on,  — 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.        2l 

"  For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell ; 
High  though  his  titles,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim, 
Despite  these  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 
The  wretch,  concentred  all  in  self,"  — 

and  here  the  poor  fellow  choked,  could  not  go  on,  but 
started  up,  swung  the  book  into  the  sea,  vanisned  into 
his  state-room,  "  And  by  Jove,"  said  Phillips,  "  we  did 
not  see  him  for  two  months  again.  And  I  had  to 
make  up  some  beggarly  story  to  that  English  surgeon 
why  I  did  not  return  his  Walter  Scott  to  him." 

That  story  shows  about  the  time  when  Nolan's 
braggadocio  must  have  broken  down.  At  first,  they 
said,  he  took  a  very  high  tone,  considered  his  imprison- 
ment a  mere  farce,  affected  to  enjoy  the  voyage,  and 
all  that ;  but  Phillips  said  that  after  he  came  out  of 
his  state-room  he  never  was  the  same  man  again.  He 
never  read  aloud  again,  unless  it  was  the  Bible  or 
Shakespeare,  or  something  else  he  was  sure  of.  But 
it  was  not  that  merely.  He  never  entered  in  with 
the  other  young  men  exactly  as  a  companion  again. 
He  was  always  shy  afterwards,  when  I  knew  him,  — 
very  seldom  spoke,  unless  he  was  spoken  to,  except  to 
a  very  few  friends.  He  lighted  up  occasionally,  —  1 
remember  late  in  his  life  hearing  him  fairly  eloquent 
on  something  which  had  been  suggested  to  him  by 
one  of  Fle*chier's  sermons,  —  but  generally  he  had  the 
nervous,  tired  look  of  a  heart-wounded  man. 

When  Captain  Shaw  was  coming  home,  —  if,  as  I 
lay,  it  was  Shaw,  —  rather  to  the  surprise  of  every- 


22         THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

body  they  made  one  of  the  Windward  Islands,  and  lav 
off  and  on  for  nearly  a  week.  The  boys  said  the  of- 
ficers were  sick  of  salt-junk,  and  meant  to  have  turtle- 
soup  before  they  came  home.  But  after  several  days 
the  Warren  came  to  the  same  rendezvous  ;  they  ex- 
changed signals  ;  she  sent  to  Phillips  and  these  home- 
ward-bound men  letters  and  papers,  and  told  them  she 
was  outward-bound,  perhaps  to  the  Mediterranean, 
and  took  poor  Nolan  and  his  traps  on  the  boat  back  to 
try  his  second  cruise.  He  looked  very  blank  when  he 
was  told  to  get  ready  to  join  her.  He  had  known 
enough  of  the  signs  of  the  sky  to  know  that  till  that 
moment  he  was  going  "  home."  But  this  was  a  dis- 
tinct evidence  of  something  he  had  not  thought  of, 
perhaps,  —  that  there  was  no  going  home  for  him, 
even  to  a  prison.  And  this  was  the  first  of  some 
twenty  such  transfers,  which  brought  him  sooner  or 
later  into  half  our  best  vessels,  but  which  kept  him 
all  his  life  at  least  some  hundred  miles  from  the  coun- 
try he  had  hoped  he  might  never  hear  of  again. 

It  may  have  been  on  that  second  cruise,  —  it  was 
once  when  he  was  up  the  Mediterranean, — that  Mrs. 
Graff,  the  celebrated  Southern  beauty  of  those  days, 
danced  with  him.  They  had  been  lying  a  long  time 
in  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  the  officers  were  very  inti- 
mate in  the  English  fleet,  and  there  had  been  great 
festivities,  and  our  men  thought  they  must  give  a  great 
ball  on  board  the  ship.  How  they  ever  did  it  on  board 
the  "  Warren  "  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know.     Perhaps  it 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT   A  COUNTRY.  23 

was  not  the  "  Warren,"  or  perhaps  ladies  did  not  take 
up  so  much  room  as  they  do  now.  They  wanted  to 
use  Nolan's  state-room  for  something,  and  they  hated 
to  do  it  without  asking  him  to  the  ball ;  so  the  captain 
said  they  might  ask  him,  if  they  would  be  responsible 
that  he  did  not  talk  with  the  wrong  people,  "who 
would  give  him  intelligence."  So  the  dance  went  on, 
the  finest  party  that  had  ever  been  known,  I  dare  say; 
for  I  never  heard  of  a  man-of-war  ball  that  was  not. 
For  ladies  they  had  the  family  of  the  American  consul, 
one  or  two  travellers  who  had  adventured  so  far,  and 
a  nice  bevy  of  English  girls  and  matrons,  perhaps 
Lady  Hamilton  herself. 

Well,  different  officers  relieved  each  other  in  stand- 
ing and  talking  with  Nolan  in  a  friendly  way,  so  as  to 
be  sure  that  nobody  else  spoke  to  him.  The  dancing 
went  on  with  spirit,  and  after  a  w^hile  even  the  fellows 
who  took  this  honorary  guard  of  Nolan  ceased  to  fear 
any  contretemps.  Only  when  some  English  lady  — 
Lady  Hamilton,  as  I  said,  perhaps  —  called  for  a  set 
of  "American  dances,"  an  odd  thing  happened. 
Everybody  then  danced  contra-dances..  The  black 
band,  nothing  loath,  conferred  as  to  what  "  American 
dances  "  were,  and  started  off  with  "  Virginia  Reel," 
which  they  followed  with  "  Money-Musk,"  which,  in 
its  turn  in  those  days,  should  have  been  followed  by 
"  The  Old  Thirteen."  But  just  as  Dick,  the  leader, 
tapped  for  his  fiddles  to  begin,  and  bent  forward,  about 
to  say,  in    true    negro    state,  " 4  The  Old  Thirteen, 


24  THE   MAN    WITHOUT    A    COUNTRY. 

gentlemen  and  ladies ! "  as  he  had  said  "  '  Virginny 
Reel,'  if  you  please  !  "  and  " '  Money-Musk,'  if  you 
please  !"  the  captain's  boy  tapped  him  on  the  shoulder, 
whispered  to  him,  and  he  did  not  announce  the  name 
of  the  dance ;  he  merely  bowed,  began  on  the  air,  and 
they  all  fell  to,  —  the  officers  teaching  the  English 
girls  the  figure,  but  not  telling  them  why  it  had  no 
name. 

But  that  is  not  the  story  I  started  to  tell. —-As  the 
dancing  went  on,  Nolan  and  our  fellows  all  got  at  easo, 
as  I  said,  —  so  much  so,  that  it  seemed  quite  natural 
for  him  to  bow  to  that  splendid  Mrs.  Graff,  and  say,  — 

44 1  hope  you  have  not  forgotten  me,  Miss  Rutledge. 
Shall  I  have  the  honor  of  dancing?  " 

He  did  it  so  quickly,  that  Fellows,  who  was  by  him, 
could  not  hinder  him.     She  laughed  and  said,  — 

"  I  am  not  Miss  Rutledge  any  longer,  Mr.  Nolan ; 
but  I  will  dance  all  the  same,"  just  nodded  to  Fellows, 
as  if  to  say  he  must  leave  Mr.  Nolan  to  her,  and  led 
him  off  to  the  place  where  the  dance  was  forming. 

Nolan  thought  he  had  got  his  chance.  He  had 
known  her  at  Philadelphia,  and  at  other  places  had 
met  her,  and  this  was  a  Godsend.  You  could  not 
talk  in  contra-dances,  as  you  do  in  cotillons,  or  even 
ii  the  pauses  of  waltzing;  but  there  were  chances 
for  tongues  and  sounds,  as  well  as  for  eyes  and  blushes. 
He  began  with  her  travels,  and  Europe,  and  Vesuvius, 
and  the  French  ;  and  then,  when  they  had  worked 
clown,  and  had  that  long  talking-time  at  the  bottom 

1  DO 


THE  MAN   WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  25 

of  the  set,  he  said,  boldly,  —  a  little  pale,  she  said,  as 
she  told  me  the  story,  years  after,  — 

"  And  what  do  you  hear  from  home,  Mrs.  Graff?  " 

And  that  splendid  creature  looked  through  him. 
Jove  !  how  she  must  have  looked  through  him ! 

"  Home  ! !  Mr.  Nolan  ! ! !  I  thought  you  were  the 
man  who  never  wanted  to  hear  of  ho-e  again!"  — 
juid  she  walked  directly  up  the  deck  to  her  husband, 
and  left  poor  Nolan  alone,  as  he  always  was.  —  He  did 
not  dance  again. 

I  cannot  give  any  history  of  him  in  order  ;  nobody 
can  now  ;  and,  indeed,  I  am  not  trying  to.  These 
are  the  traditions,  which  I  sort  out,  as  I  believe  them, 
from  the  myths  which  have  been  told  about  this  man 
for  forty  years.  The  lies  that  have  been  told  about 
him  are  legion.  The  fellows  used  to  say  he  was  the 
"  Iron  Mask"  ;  and  poor  George  Pons  went  to  his 
grave  in  the  belief  that  this  was  the  author  of  "  Junius," 
who  was  being  punished  for  his  celebrated  libel  on 
Thomas  Jefferson.  Pons  was  not  very  strong  in  the 
historical  line.  A  happier  story  than  either  of  these  I 
have  told  is  of  the  War.  That  came  along  soon  after. 
I  have  heard  this  affair  told  in  three  or  four  ways,  — 
and,  indeed,  it  may  have  happened  more  than  once. 
But  which  ship  it  was  on  I  cannot  tell.  However, 
in  one,  at  least,  of  the  great  frigate-duels  with  the 
English,  in  which  the  navy  was  really  baptized,  it 
happened  that  a  round-shot  from  the  enemy  entered 
one  of  our  ports  square,  and  took  right  down  the  of- 


26         THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

fier  of  the  gun  himself,  and  almost  every  man  of  the 
gun's  crew.  Now  you  may  say  what  you  choose 
about  courage,  but  that  is  not  a  nice  thing  to  see.  But, 
as  the  men  who  were  not  killed  picked  themselves  up, 
snd  as  they  and  the  surgeon's  people  were  carrying  off 
the  bodies,  there  appeared  Nolan,  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
with  the  rammer  in  his  hand,  and,  just  as  if  he  had  been 
the  officer,  told  them  off  with  authority,  —  who  should 
go  to  the  cockpit  with  the  wounded  men,  who  should 
stay  with  him,  —  perfectly  cheery,  and  with  that  way 
which  makes  men  feel  sure  all  is  right  and  is  going  to 
be  right.  And  he  finished  loading  the  gun  with 
his  own  hands,  aimed  it,  and  bade  the  men  fire.  And 
there  he  stayed,  captain  of  that  gun,  keeping  those  fel- 
lows in  spirits,  till  the  enemy  struck,  —  sitting  on  the 
carriage  while  the  gun  was  cooling,  though  he  was  ex- 
posed all  the  time,  —  showing  them  easier  ways  to 
handle  heavy  shot,  —  making  the  raw  hands  laugh  at 
their  own  blunders,  —  and  when  the  gun  cooled  again, 
getting  it  loaded  and  fired  twice  as  often  as  any  other 
gun  on  the  ship.  The  captain  walked  forward  by  way 
of  encouraging  the  men,  and  Nolan  touched  his  hat 
and  said, — 

"  I  am  showing  them  how  we  do  this  in  the  artillery, 
sir." 

And  this  is  the  part  of  the  story  where  all  the  le- 
gends agree  ;  and  the  Commodore  said, — 

"  I  see  you  do,  and  I  thank  you,  sir ;  and  I  shali 
never  forget  this  day,  sir,  and  you  never  shall,  sir.', 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.        27 

And  after  the  whole  thing  was  over,  and  he  had 
ihe  Englishman's  sword,  in  the  midst  of  the  state  and 
ceremony  of  the  quarter-deck,  he  said, — 

"  Where  is  Mr.  Nolan  ?  Ask  Mr.  Nolan  to  come 
here." 

And  when  Nolan  came,  the  captain  said, — 

"  Mr.  Nolan,  we  are  all  very  grateful  to  you  to-day, 
you  are  one  of  us  to-day ;  you  will  be  named  in  tho 
despatches." 

And  then  the  old  man  took  off  his  own  sword  o^ 
ceremony,  and  gave  it  to  Nolan,  and  made  him  put  it 
on.  The  man  told  me  this  who  saw  it.  Nolan  cried 
like  a  baby,  and  well  he  might.  He  had  not  worn  a 
sword  since  that  infernal  day  at  Fort  Adams.  But 
always  afterwards  on  occasions  of  ceremony,  he  wor<* 
that  quaint  old  French  sword  of  the  Commodore's. 

The  captain  did  mention  him  in  the  despatches. 
It  was  always  said  he  asked  that  he  might  be  par- 
doned. He  wrote  a  special  letter  to  the  Secretary  of 
War.  But  nothing  ever  came  of  it.  As  I  said,  that 
was  about  the  time  when  they  began  to  ignore  the 
whole  transaction  at  Washington,  and  when  Nolan's 
imprisonment  began  to  carry  itself  on  because  there  was 
nobody  to  stop  it  without  any  new  orders  from  home. 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  he  was  with  Porter  when 
he  took  possession  of  the  Nukahiwa  Islands.  Not 
this  Porter,  you  know,  but  old  Porter,  his  father,  Es- 
sex Porter,  —  that  is,  the  old  Essex  Porter,  not  this 
Essex.     As  an  artillery  officer,  who  had  seen  service 


28  THE   MAN    WITHOUT    A    COUNTRY. 

in  the  West,  Nolan  knew  more  about  fortifications, 
embrasures,  ravelins,  stockades,  and  all  that,  than  any 
of  them  did ;  and  he  worked  with  a  right  good- will  in 
fixing  that  battery  all  right.  I  have  always  thought 
it  was  a  pity  Porter  did  not  leave  him  in  command 
there  with  Gamble.  That  would  have  settled  all  the 
question  about  his  punishment.  We  should  have  kept 
'he  islands,  and  at  this  moment  we  should  have  one 
station  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Our  French  friends, 
too,  when  they  wanted  this  little  watering-place,  would 
have  found  it  was  preoccupied.  But  Madison  and  the 
Virginians,  of  course,  flung  all  that  away. 

All  that  was  near  fifty  years  ago.  If  Nolan  was  thirty 
then,  he  must  have  been  near  eighty  when  he  died. 
He  looked  sixty  when  he  was  forty.  But  he  never 
seemed  to  me  to  change  a  hair  afterwards.  As  I  im- 
agine his  life,  from  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  of  it, 
he  must  have  been  in  every  sea,  and  yet  almost  never 
on  land.  He  must  have  known,  in  a  formal  way,  moie 
officers  in  our  service  than  any  man  living  knows. 
He  told  me  once,  with  a  grave  smile,  that  no  man  in 
the  world  lived  so  methodical  a  life  as  he.  "  Yon 
know  the  boys  say  I  am  the  Iron  Mask,  and  you  know 
how  busy  he  was."  He  said  it  did  not  do  for  any  one  to 
try  to  read  all  the  time,  more  than  to  do  anything  else 
all  the  time ;  but  that  he  read  just  five  hours  a  day. 
"  Then,"  he  said,  "  I  keep  up  my  note-books,  writing 
in  them  at  such  and  such  hours  from  what  I  have  been 
reading ;  and   I   include   in   these    my   scrap-books.' 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  29 

These  were  very  curious  indeed.  He  had  six  or  eight, 
of  different  subjects.  There  was  one  of  History,  one 
of  Natural  Science,  one  which  he  called  "  Odds  and 
Ends."  But  they  were  not  merely  books  of  extracts 
from  newspapers.  They  had  bits  of  plants  and  rib' 
bons,  shells  tied  on,  and  carved  scraps  of  bone  and 
wood,  which  he  had  taught  the  men  to  cut  for  him, 
and  they  were  beautifully  illustrated.  He  drew  ad- 
mirably. He  had  some  of  the  funniest  drawings  there, 
and  some  of  the  most  pathetic,  that  I  have  ever  seen  in 
my  life.  I  wonder  who  will  have  Nolan's  scrap-books^ 
Well,  he  said  his  reading  and  his  notes  were  his  pro- 
fession, and  that  thev  took  five  hours  and  two  hours 
respectively  of  each  day.  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  every 
man  should  have  a  diversion  as  well  as  a  profession. 
My  Natural  History  is  my  diversion."  That  took 
two  hours  a  day  more.  The  men  used  to  bring  him 
birds  and  fish,  but  on  a  long  cruise  he  had  to  satisfy 
himself  with  centipedes  and  cockroaches  and  such  small 
game.  He  was  the  only  naturalist  I  ever  met  who 
knew  anything  about  the  habits  of  the  house-fly  and  the 
mosquito.  All  those  people  can  tell  you  whether  they 
are  Lepidoptera  or  Steptopotera  ;  but  as  for  telling  how 
you  can  get  rid  of  them,  or  how  they  get  away  from 
you  when  you  strike  them,  —  why  Linnaeus  knew  as 
little  of  that  as  John  Foy  the  idiot  did.  These  nine 
hours  made  Nolan's  regular  daily  "  occupation."  The 
rest  of  the  time  he  talked  or  walked.  Till  he  grew 
very  old,  he  went  aloft  a  great  deal.     He  always  kept 


30  THE    MAlf    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

up  his  exercise  ;  and  I  never  heard  that  he  was  ill. 
If  any  other  man  was  ill,  he  was  the  kindest  nurse 
in  the  world  ;  and  he  knew  more  than  half  the  sur- 
geons do.  Then  if  anybody  was  sick  or  died,  or  if 
the  captain  wanted  him  to,  on  any  other  occasion,  he 
was  always  ready  to  read  prayers.  I  have  said  that 
he   read  beautifully. 

My  own  acquaintance  with  Philip  Nolan  began  six 
or  eight  years  after  the  War,  on  my  first  voyage  after  I 
was  appointed  a  midshipman.  It  was  in  the  first  days 
after  our  Slave-Trade  treaty,  while  the  Reigning  House, 
which  was  still  the  House  of  Virginia,  had  still  a  sort  of 
sentimentalism  about  the  suppression  of  the  horrors  of 
the  Middle  Passage ,  and  something  was  sometimes  done 
that  way.  We  were  in  the  South  Atlantic  on  that 
business.  From  the  time  I  joined,  I  believe  I  th^aght 
Nolan  was  a  sort  of  lay  chaplain,  —  a  chaplain  with  a 
blue  coat.  I  never  asked  about  him.  Everything  in 
the  ship  was  strange  to  me.  I  knew  it  was  green  to 
ask  questions,  and  I  suppose  I  thought  there  was  a 
u  Plain-Buttons  "  on  every  ship.  We  had  him  to 
dine  in  our  metes  once  a  week,  and  the  caution  was 
given  that  on  that  day  nothing  was  to  be  said  about 
home.  But  if  they  had  told  us  not  to  say  anything 
about  the  planet  Mars  or  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy, 
I  should  not  have  asked  why  ;  there  were  a  great 
many  things  which  seemed  to  me  to  have  as  little  rea- 
son. I  first  came  to  understand  anything  about  "  the 
man  without  a  country  "  one  day  when  we  overhauled 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A   COUNTRY.  gj 

A  dirty  little  schooner  which  had  slaves  on  board.  An 
officer  was  sent  to  take  charge  of  her,  and,  after  a  few 
minutes,  he  sent  back  his  boat  to  ask  that  some  one 
might  be  sent  him  who  conld  speak  Portuguese.  We 
were  all  looking  over  the  rail  when  the  message  came, 
and  we  all  wished  we  could  interpret,  when  the  cap- 
tain asked  Who  spoke  Portuguese.  But  none  of  the 
officers  did  ;  and  just  as  the  captain  was  sending  for- 
ward to  ask  if  any  of  the  people  coald,  Nolan  stepped 
out  and  said  he  should  be  glad  to  interpret,  if  the  cap- 
tain wished,  as  he  understood  the  language.  The  cap- 
tain thanked  him,  fitted  out  another  boat  with  him,  and 
in  this  boat  it  was  my  luck  to  go. 

When  we  got  there,  it  was  such  a  scene  as  you  sel- 
dom see,  and  never  want  to.  Nastiness  beyond  ac- 
count, and  chaos  run  loose  in  the  midst  of  the  nastiness.- 
There  were  not  a  great  many  of  the  negroes  ;  but  by 
way  of  making  what  there  were  understand  that  they 
were  free,  Vaughan  had  had  their  hand-cuffs  and  an- 
kle-cuffs knocked  off,  and,  for  convenience'  sake,  was 
putting  them  upon  the  rascals  of  the  schooner's  crew. 
The  negroes  were,  most  of  them,  out  of  the  hold,  and 
gwarming  all  round  the  dirtv  deck,  with  a  central 
throng  surrounding  Vaughan  and  addressing  him  in 
every  dialect,  and  patois  of  a  dialect,  from  the  Zulu 
click  up  to  the  Parisian  of  Beledeljereed. 

As  we  came  on  deck,  Vaughan  looked  down  from  a 
hogshead,  on  which  he  had  mounted  in  desperation, 
and  said :  — 


32  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY. 

u  For  God's  love,  is  there  anybody  who  can  make 
these  wretches  understand  something  ?  The  men  gave 
them  rum,  and  that  did  not  quiet  them.  I  knocked 
that  big  fellow  down  twice,  and  that  did  not  soothe 
him.  And  then  I  talked  Choctaw  to  all  of  them  to- 
gether ;  and  I  '11  be  hanged  if  they  understood  that  as 
well  as  they  understood  the  English." 

Nolan  said  he  could  speak  Portuguese,  and  one  or 
two  fine-looking  Kroomen  were  dragged  out,  who,  as 
it  had  been  found  already,  had  worked  for  the  Portu 
guese  on  the  coast  at  Fernando  Po. 

a  Tell  them  they  are  free,"  said  Vaughan  ;  "  ar  d 
tell  them  that  these  rascals  are  to  be  hanged  as  soon  us 
we  can  get  rope  enough." 

Nolan  "put  that  into  Spanish," — that  is,  he  ex- 
plained it  in  such  Portuguese  as  the  Kroomen  cou^i 
understand,  and  they  in  turn  to  such  of  the  negro  us 
as  could  understand  them.  Then  there  was  such  a 
yell  of  delight,  clinching  of  fists,  leaping  and  dan- 
cing, kissing  of  Nolan's  feet,  and  a  general  rush  made 
to  the  hogshead  by  way  of  spontaneous  worship  oi 
Vaughan,  as  the  deus  ex  machina  of  the  occasion. 

"  Tell  them,"  said  Vaughan,  well  pleased,  "  that  I 
will  take  them  all  to  Cape  Palmas." 

This  did  not  answer  so  well.  Cape  Palmas  waa 
practically  as  far  from  the  homes  of  most  of  them 
as  New  Orleans  or  Rio  Janeiro  was  ;  that  is,  they 
would  be  eternally  separated  from  home  there.  And 
their  interpreters,  as  we  could  understand,  instantly 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTKY.        33 

said,  "  Ah,  non  JPalmas"  and  began  to  propose  infinite 
other  expedients  in  most  voluble  language.  Vaughan 
was  rather  disappointed  at  this  result  of  his  liberality, 
and  asked  Nolan  eagerly  what  they  said.  The  drops 
stood  on  poor  Nolan's  white  forehead,  as  he  hushed 
the  men  down,  and  said :  — 

**  He  says,  '  Not  Palmas.'  He  says,  '  Take  us 
home,  take  us  to  our  own  country,  take  us  to  our  own 
house,  take  us  to  our  own  pickaninnies  and  our  own 
women.'  He  says  he  has  an  old  father  and  mother 
who  will  die  if  they  do  not  see  him.  And  this  one 
says  he  left  his  people  all  sick,  and  paddled  down  to 
Fernando  to  beg  the  white  doctor  to  come  and  help 
them,  and  that  these  devils  caught  him  in  the  bay  just 
in  sight  of  home,  and  that  he  has  never  seen  anybody 
from  home  since  then.  And  this  one  says,"  choked 
out  Nolan,  "  that  he  has  not  heard  a  word  from  his 
home  in  six  months,  while  he  has  been  locked  up  in 
an  infernal  barracoon." 

Vaughan  always  said  he  grew  gray  himself  whde 

Nolan  struggled  through  this  interpretation.     I,  who 

did  not  understand  anything  of  the  passion  involved  in 

it,  saw  that  the  very  elements  were  melting  with  fei  - 

vent  heat,  and  that  something  was  to  pay  somewhere. 

Even  the  negroes  themselves  stopped  howling,  as  they 

saw  Nolan's  agony,  and  Vaughan's  almost  equal  agony 

of  sympathy.     As  quick  as  he    could  get  words,  he 

said :  — 

"  Tell  them  yes,  yes,  yes  ;  tell  them  they  shall  go 

2* 


34        THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

to  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon,  if  they  will.  If  I  sail 
the  schooner  through  the  Great  White  Desert,  they 
shall  go  home  !  " 

And  after  some  fashion  Nolan  said  so.  And  then 
they  all  fell  to  kissing  him  again,  and  wanted  to  rub 
his  nose  with  theirs. 

But  he  could  not  stand  it  long ;  and  getting  Vaughan 
to  say  he  might  go  back,  he  beckoned  me  down  into 
our  boat.  As  we  lay  back  in  the  stern-sheets  and 
the  men  gave  way,  he  said  to  me :  "  Youngster,  let 
that  show  you  what  it  is  to  be  without  a  family, 
without  a  home,  and  without  a  country.  And  if  you 
are  ever  tempted  to  say  a  word  or  to  do  a  thing  that 
shall  put  a  bar  between  you  and  your  family,  your 
home,  and  your  country,  pray  God  in  his  mercy  to 
take  you  that  instant  home  to  his  own  heaven.  Stick 
by  your  family,  boy ;  forget  you  have  a  self,  while 
you  do  everything  for  them.  Think  of  your  home, 
boy ;  write  and  send,  and  talk  about  it.  Let  it  be 
nearer  and  nearer  to  your  thought,  the  farther  you 
have  to  travel  from  it ;  and  rush  back  to  it,  when  you 
are  free,  as  that  poor  black  slave  is  doing  now.  And 
for  your  country,  boy,"  and  the  words  rattled  in  his 
throat,  "  and  for  that  flag,"  and  he  pointed  to  the 
ship,  ''never  dream  a  dream  but  of  serving  her  as  she 
bids  you,  though  the  service  carry  you  through  a 
thousand  hells.  No  matter  what  happens  to  you,  no 
matter  who  flatters  you  or  who  abuses  you,  never 
look  at  another  flag,  never  let  a  night  pass  but  yon 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  35 

pray  God  to  bless  that  flag.  Remember,  boy,  that 
behind  all  these  men  you  have  to  do  with,  behind  offi- 
cers, and  government,  and  people  even,  there  is  the 
Country  Herself,  your  Country,  and  that  you  belong 
to  Her  as  you  belong  to  your  own  mother.  Stand  by 
Her,  boy>  as  you  would  stand  by  your  mother,  if  those 
devils  there  had  got  hold  of  her  to-day  I  " 

I  was  frightened  to  death  by  his  calm,  hard  passion , 
but  I  blundered  out,  that  I  would,  by  all  that  was 
holy,  and  that  I  had  never  thought  of  doing  anything 
else.  He  hardly  seemed  to  hear  me ;  but  he  did, 
almost  in  a  whisper,  say :  "  O,  if  anybody  had  said  so 
to  me  when  I  was  of  your  age !  " 

I  think  it  wis  this  half-confidence  of  his,  which  1 
never  abused,  for  I  never  told  this  story  till  now, 
which  afterward  made  us  great  friends.  He  was 
very  kind  to  me.  Often  he  sat  up,  or  even  got  up,  at 
night,  to  walk  the  deck  with  me,  when  it  was  my 
watch.  He  explained  to  me  a  great  deal  of  my 
mathematics,  and  I  owe  to  him  my  taste  for  mathe« 
matics.  He  lent  mo  books,  and  helped  me  about  my 
reading.  He  never  alluded  so  directly  to  his  story 
again;  but  from  one  and  another  officer  I  have  learned, 
in  thirty  years,  what  I  am  telling.  When  we  parted 
from  him  in  St.  Thomas  harbor,  at  the  end  of  our 
cruise,  I  was  more  sorry  than  I  can  tell.  I  was  very 
glad  to  meet  him  again  in  1830 ;  and  later  in  life, 
when  I  thought  I  had  some  influence  in  Washington, 
I  moved  heaven  and   earth  to  have  him  discharged 


36  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

But  it  was  like  getting  a  ghost  out  of  prison.  They 
pretended  there  was  no  such  man,  and  never  was 
such  a  man.  They  will  say  so  at  the  Department 
now !  Perhaps  they  do  not  know.  It  will  not  be  the 
first  thing  in  the  service  of  which  the  Department 
appears  to  know  nothing  ! 

There  is  a  story  that  Nolan  met  Burr  once  on  one 
of  our  vessels,  when  a  party  of  Americans  came  on 
board  in  the  Mediterranean.  But  this  I  believe  to  be 
a  lie  ;  or,  rather,  it  is  a  myth,  ben  trovato,  involving  a 
tremendous  blowing-up  with  which  he  sunk  Burr, — 
asking  him  how  he  liked  to  be  "  without  a  country." 
But  it  is  clear  from  Burr's  life,  that  nothing  of  the 
sort  could  have  happened  ;  and  I  mention  this  only  as 
an  illustration  of  the  stories  which  get  a-going  where 
there  is  the  least  mystery  at  bottom. 

So  poor  Philip  Nolan  had  his  wish  fulfilled.  I 
know  but  one  fate  more  dreadful;  it  is  the  fate  re- 
served for  those  men  who  shall  have  one  day  to  exile 
themselves  from  their  country  because  they  have  at- 
tempted her  ruin,  and  shall  have  at  the  same  time  to 
see  the  prosperity  and  honor  to  which  she  rises  when 
she  has  rid  herself  of  them  and  their  iniquities.  The 
wish  of  poor  Nolan,  as  we  all  learned  to  call  him,  n  ot  be- 
cause his  punishment  was  too  great,  but  because  his 
repentance  was  so  clear,  was  precisely  the  wish  of 
every  Bragg  and  Beauregard  who  broke  a  soldier's 
oath  two  years  ago,  and  of  every  Maury  and  Barron 
who  broke  a  sailor's.     I  do  not  know  how  often  they 


THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY.  37 

have  repented.  I  do  know  that  they  have  done  all 
that  in  them  lay  that  they  might  have  no  country,  — 
that  ail  the  honors,  associations,  memories,  and  hopes 
which  belong  to  "  country  "  might  be  broken  up  into 
little  shreds  and  distributed  to  the  winds.  I  know, 
too,  that  their  punishment,  as  they  vegetate  through 
what  is  left  of  life  to  them  in  wretched  Boulognes  and 
Leicester  Squares,  where  they  are  destined  to  upbraid 
each  other  till  they  die,  will  have  all  the  agony  of 
Nolan's,  with  the  added  pang  that  every  one  who  sees 
them  will  see  them  to  despise  and  to  execrate  them. 
They  will  have  their  wish,  like  him. 

For  him,  poor  fellow,  he  repented  of  his  folly,  and 
then,  like  a  man,  submitted  to  the  fate  he  had  asked 
for.  He  never  intentionally  added  to  the  difficulty  or 
delicacy  of  the  charge  of  those  who  had  him  in  hold. 
Accidents  would  happen ;  but  they  never  happened 
from  his  fault.  Lieutenant  Truxton  told  me,  that, 
when  Texas  was  annexed,  there  was  a  careful  discus- 
sion among  the  officers,  whether  they  should  get  hold 
of  Nolan's  handsome  set  of  maps,  and  cut  Texas  out 
of  it,  —  from  the  map  of  the  world  and  the  map  of 
Mexico.  The  United  States  had  been  cut  out  when 
the  atlas  was  bought  for  him.  But  it  was  voted, 
rightly  enough,  that  to  do  this  would  be  virtually  to 
reveal  to  him  what  had  happened,  or,  as  Harry  Cole 
said,  to  make  him  think  Old  Burr  had  succeeded.  So 
it  was  from  no  fault  of  Nolan's  that  a  great  botch  hap- 
pened at  my  own  table,  when,  for  a  sk  "7  time,  I  waf 


88  THE    MAN    WITHOUT    A    COUNTRY. 

in  command  of  the  George  Washington  corvette,  on 
the  South  American  station.  We  were  lying  in  the 
La  Plata,  and  some  of  the  officers,  who  had  been  on 
shore,  and  had  just  joined  again,  were  entertaining  us 
with  accounts  of  their  misadventures  in  riding  the 
half-wild  horses  of  Buenos  Ayres.  Nolan  was  at 
table,  and  was  in  an  unusually  bright  and  talkative 
mood.  Some  story  of  a  tumble  reminded  him  of  an 
adventure  of  his  own,  when  he  was  catching  wild 
horses  in  Texas  with  his  adventurous  cousin,  at  a  time 
when  he  must  have  been  quite  a  boy.  He  told  the 
story  with  a  good  deal  of  spirit,  —  so  much  so,  that  the 
silence  which  often  follows  a  good  story  hung  over  the 
table  for  an  instant,  to  be  broken  by  Nolan  himself. 
For  he  asked  perfectly  unconsciously :  — 

"  Pray,  what  has  become  of  Texas  ?  After  the  Mexi- 
cans got  their  independence,  I  thought  that  province 
of  Texas  would  come  forward  very  fast.  It  is  really 
one  of  the  finest  regions  on  earth ;  it  is  the  Italy 
of  this  continent.  But  I  have  not  seen  or  heard  a 
word  of  Texas  for  near  twenty  years." 

There  were  two  Texan  officers  at  the  table.  The 
reason  he  had  never  heard  of  Texas  was  that  Texas 
and  her  affairs  had  been  painfully  cut  out  of  his 
newspapers  since  Austin  began  his  settlements ;  so 
that,  while  he  read  of  Honduras  and  Tamaulipas,  and, 
till  quite  lately,  of  California,  —  this  virgin  province, 
in  which  his  brother  had  travelled  so  far,  and,  I  be« 
Ueve,  had  died,  had  ceased  to  be  to  him.     Waters  and 


THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTEY.  39 

Williams,  the  two  Texas  men,  looked  grimly  at  each 
other,  and  tried  not  to  laugh.  Edward  Morris  had  his 
attention  attracted  by  the  third  link  in  the  chain  of 
the  captain's  chandelier.  Watrous  was  seized  with  a 
convulsion  of  sneezing.  Nolan  himself  saw  that  some- 
thing was  to  pay,  he  did  not  know  what.  And  I,  as 
master  of  the  feast,  had  to  say,  — 

"  Texas  is  out  of  the  map,  Mr.  Nolan.  Have  you 
seen  Captain  Back's  curious  account  of  Sir  Thomas 
Roe's  Welcome  ?  " 

After  that  cruise  I  never  saw  Nolan  again.  I  wrote 
to  him  at  least  twice  a  year,  for  in  that  voyage  we  be- 
came even  confidentially  intimate  ;  but  he  never  wrote 
to  me.  The  other  men  tell  me  that  in  those  fifteen 
years  he  aged  very  fast,  as  well  he  might  indeed,  but 
that  he  was  still  the  same  gentle,  uncomplaining,  silent 
sufferer  that  he  ever  was,  bearing  as  best  he  could  his 
self-appointed  punishment,  —  rather  less  social,  per- 
haps, with  new  men  whom  he  did  not  know,  but  more 
anxious,  apparently,  than  ever  to  serve  and  befriend 
and  teach  the  boys,  some  of  whom  fairly  seemed  to 
worship  him.  And  now  it  seems  the  dear  old  fellow 
is  dead.     He  has  found  a  home  at  last,  and  a  country. 

Since  writing  this,  and  while  considering  whether 
or  no  I  would  print  it,  as  a  warning  to  the  young  No- 
lans and  Vallandighams  and  Tatnalls  of  to-day  of  what 
it  is  to  throw  away  a  country,  I  have  received  from 
Danforth,  who  is  on  board  the  Levant,  a  letter  which 


40  THE   MAN   WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

gives  an  account  of  Nolan's  last  hours.  It  remove? 
all  my  doubts  about  telling  this  story. 

To  understand  the  first  words  of  the  letter,  the  non- 
professional reader  should  remember  that  after  1817, 
the  position  of  every  officer  who  had  Nolan  in  charge 
was  one  of  the  greatest  delicacy.  The  government 
had  failed  to  renew  the  order  of  1807  regarding  him. 
What  was  a  man  to  do  ?  Should  he  let  him  go  ? 
What,  then,  if  he  were  called  to  account  by  the  De- 
partment for  violating  the  order  of  1807  ?  Should  he 
keep  him  ?  What,  then,  if  Nolan  should  be  liberated 
some  day,  and  should  bring  an  action  for  false  imprison- 
ment or  kidnapping  against  every  man  who  had  had 
him  in  charge  ?  I  urged  and  pressed  this  upon  Southard, 
and  I  have  reason  to  think  that  other  officers  did  the 
same  thing.  But  the  Secretary  always  said,  as  they  so 
often  do  at  Washington,  that  there  were  no  special  or- 
ders to  give,  and  that  we  must  act  on  our  own  judgment. 
That  means,  "  If  you  succeed,  you  will  be  sustained  ; 
if  you  fail,  you  will  be  disavowed."  Well,  as  Danforth 
says,  all  that  is  over  now,  though  I  do  not  know  but  I 
expose  myself  to  a  criminal  prosecution  on  the  evidence 
of  the  very  revelation  I  am  making. 

Here  is  the  letter  :  — 

"Levant,  2°  2'  S.  @  131°  W. 
*'  Dear  Fred  :  —  I  try  to  find  heart  and  life  to  tell 
you  that  it  is  all  over  with  dear  old  Nolan.     I  have 
been  with  him  on  this  voyage  more  than  I  ever  was. 


THE  MAN   WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  41 

and  I  can  understand  wholly  now  the  way  in  which 
you  used  to  speak  of  the  dear  old  fellow.  I  could  see 
that  he  was  not  strong,  but  I  had  no  idea  the  end  was 
so  near.  The  doctor  has  been  watching  him  very 
carefully,  and  yesterday  morning  came  to  me  and  told 
me  that  Nolan  was  not  so  well,  and  had  not  left  his 
state-room,  — -a  thing  I  never  remember  before.  He 
had  let  the  doctor  come  and  see  him  as  he  lay  there, 

—  the  first  time  the  doctor  had  been  in  the  state-room, 

—  and  he  said  he  should  like  to  see  me.  O  dear  !  do 
you  remember  the  mysteries  we  boys  used  to  invent 
about  his  room,  in  the  old  Intrepid  days?  Well,  I 
went  in,  and  there,  to  be  sure,  the  poor  fellow  lay  in 
his  berth,  smiling  pleasantly  as  he  gave  me  his  hand, 
but  looking  very  frail.  I  could  not  help  a  glance 
round,  which  showed  me  what  a  little  shrine  he  had 
made  of  the  box  he  was  lying  in.  The  stars  and 
stripes  were  triced  up  above  and  around  a  picture  of 
Washington,  and  he  had  painted  a  majestic  eagle,  with 
lightnings  blazing  from  his  beak  and  his  foot  just  clasp- 
ing the  whole  globe,  which  his  wings  overshadowed. 
The  dear  old  boy  saw  my  glance,  and  said,  with  a  sad 
smile,  '  Here,  you  see,  I  have  a  country!'  And  then 
he  pointed  to  the  foot  of  his  bed,  where  I  had  not  seen 
before  a  great  map  of  the  United  States,  as  he  had 
drawn  it  from  memory,  and  which  he  had  there  to  look 
upon  as  he  la^  Quaint,  queer  old  names  were  on  it, 
in  large  letters  *  Indiana  Territory,'  '.  Mississippi  Ter- 
ritory,' and  '  Louisiana  Territory,'  as  I  suppose  our  & 


42         THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

thers  learned  such  things :  but  tb**  old  fellow  had 
patched  in  Texas,  too  ;  he  had  carried  his  western 
boundary  all  the  way  to  the  Pacific,  but  on  that  shore 
fie  had  defined  nothing. 

"  '  O  Danforth,'  he  said,  'I  know  I  am  dying.  I 
cannot  get  home.  Surely  you  will  tell  me  something 
now?  —  Stop  !  stop  !  Do  not  speak  till  I  say  what  I 
am  sure  you  know,  that  there  is  not  in  this  ship,  that 
there  is  not  in  America,  —  God  bless  her  !  —  a  more 
loyal  man  than  I.  There  cannot  be  a  man  who  loves 
the  old  flag  as  I  do,  or  prays  for  it  as  I  do,  or  hopes 
for  it  as  I  do.  There  are  thirty-four  stars  in  it  now, 
Danforth.  I  thank  God  for  that,  though  I  do  not 
know  what  their  names  are.  There  has  never  been 
one  taken  away :  I  thank  God  for  that.  I  know  by 
that  that  there  has  never  been  any  successful  Burr. 

0  Danforth,  Danforth,'  he  sighed  out,  '  how  like  a 
wretched  night's  dream  a  boy's  idea  of  personal  fame 
or  of  separate  sovereignty  seems,  when  one  look? 
back  on  it  after  such  a  life  as  mine !  But  tell  me,  — 
tell  me  something,  —  tell  me  everything,  Danforth, 
before  I  die ! ' 

"  Ingham,  I  swear  to  you  that  I  felt  like  a  monster 
that  I  had  not  told  him  everything  before.  Danger 
or  no  danger,  delicacy  or  no  delicacy,  who  was  I,  that 

1  should  have  been  acting  the  tyrant  all  this  time  over 
this  dear,  sainted  old  man,  who  had  years  ago  expiated, 
m  his  whole  manhood's  life,  the  madness  of  a  boy's 
treason  ?  '  Mr.  Nolan,'  said  I,  '  I  will  tell  you  every 
thing  you  ask  about.     Only,  where  shall  I  begin  ? ' 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY.  43 

"  O  the  blessed  smile  that  crept  over  his  white  face ! 
and  he  pressed  my  hand  and  said,  i  God  bless  you  f 
4  Tell  me  their  names,'  he  said,  and  he  pointed  to  the 
stars  on  the  flag.  4  The  last  I  know  is  Ohio.  My 
father  lived  in  Kentucky.  But  I  have  guessed  Michi- 
gan and  Indiana  and  Mississippi,  —  that  was  where 
Fort  Adams  is,  —  they  make  twenty.  But  where 
are  your  other  fourteen  ?  You  have  not  cut  up  any 
of  the  old  ones,  I  hope  ?  ' 

"  Well,  that  was  not  a  bad  text,  and  I  told  him  the 
names  in  as  good  order  as  I  could,  and  he  bade  me 
take  down  his  beautiful  map  and  draw  them  in  as  J 
best  could  with  my  pencil.  He  was  wild  with  delight 
about  Texas,  told  me  how  his  cousin  died  there  ;  he 
had  marked  a  gold  cross  near  where  he  supposed  his 
gra.e  was;  and  he  had  guessed  at  Texas.  Then  he 
was  delighted  as  he  saw  California  and  Oregon  ;  — 
that,  he  said,  he  had  suspected  partly,  because  he  had 
never  been  permitted  to  land  on  that  shore,  though 
the  ships  were  there  so  much.  '  And  the  men,'  said 
he,  laughing,  '  brought  off  a  good  deal  besides  furs.' 
Then  he  went  back  —  heavens,  how  far  !  —  to  ask 
about  the  Chesapeake,  and  what  was  done  to  Barron 
for  surrendering  her  to  the  Leopard,  and  whethei 
Burr  ever  tried  again,  —  and  he  ground  his  teeth  with 
the  only  passion  he  showed.  But  in  a  moment  that 
was  over,  and  he  said,  '  God  forgive  me,  for  I  am  sure 
I  forgive  him.'  Then  he  asked  about  the  old  war,  -  - 
told  me  the  true  story  of  his  serving  the  gun  the  da^ 


44  THE    MAN    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

we  took  the  Java,  —  asked  about  dear  old  David  Por- 
ter, as  he  called  him.  Then  he  settled  down  more 
quietly,  and  very  happily,  to  hear  me  tell  in  an  houi 
the  history  of  fifty  years. 

"How  I  wished  it  had  been  somebody  who  knew 
something  !  But  I  did  as  well  as  I  could.  I  told  him 
of  the  English  war.  I  told  him  about  Fulton  and  the 
steamboat  beginning.  I  told  him  about  old  Scott,  and 
Jackson  ;  told  him  all  I  could  think  of  about  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  New  Orleans,  and  Texas,  and  his  own  old 
Kentucky.  And  do  you  think,  he  asked  who  was  in 
command  of  the  'Legion  of  the  West.'  I  told  him  it 
was  a  very  gallant  officer  named  Grant,  and  that,  by 
our  last  news,  he  was  about  to  establish  his  head-quar- 
ters at  Vicksburg.  Then,  '  Where  was  Vicksburg  ?  ' 
I  worked  that  out  on  the  map  ;  it  was  about  a  hundred 
miles,  more  or  less,  above  his  old  Fort  Adams  ;  and  I 
thought  Fort  Adams  must  be  a  ruin  now.  '  It  must 
be  at  old  Vick's  plantation,'  at  Walnut  Hills,  said  he  : 
'  well,  that  is  a  change  ! ' 

"  I  tell  you,  Ingham,  it  was  a  hard  thing  to  con- 
dense the  history  of  half  a  century  into  that  talk  with 
a  sick  man.  And  I  do  not  now  know  what  I  told  him, 
—  of  emigration,  and  the  means  of  it,  —  of  steamboats, 
and  railroads,  and  telegraphs, —  of  inventions,  and 
books,  and  literature,  —  of  the  colleges,  and  West 
Point,  and  the  Naval  School,  —  but  with  the  queerest 
interruptions  that  ever  you  heard.  You  see  it  was 
Robinson  Crusoe  asking  all  the  accumulated  questions 
of  fifty-six  years  ! 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A   COUNTRY.  45 

"  I  remember  he  asked,  all  of  a  sudden,  who  was 
President  now  ;  and  when  I  told  him,  he  asked  if  Old 
Abe  was  General  Benjamin  Lincoln's  son.  He  said 
he  met  old  General  Lincoln,  when  he  was  quite  a  boy 
himself,  at  some  Indian  treaty.  I  said  no,  that  Old 
Abe  was  a  Kentuckian  like  himself,  but  I  could  not  tell 
him  of  what  family  ;  he  had  worked  up  from  the  ranks. 
4  Good  for  him ! '  cried  Nolan  ;  4 1  am  glad  of  that. 
As  I  have  brooded  and  wondered,  I  have  thought  our 
danger  was  in  keeping  up  those  regular  successions  in 
the  first  families.'  Then  I  got  talking  about  my  visit 
to  Washington.  I  told  him  of  meeting  the  Oregon 
Congressman,  Harding  ;  I  told  him  about  the  Smith- 
sonian, and  the  Exploring  Expedition ;  I  told  him 
about  the  Capitol,  and  the  statues  for  the  pediment, 
and  Crawford's  Liberty,  and  Greenough's  Washing- 
ton :  Ingham,  I  told  him  everything  I  could  think  of 
that  would  show  the  grandeur  of  his  country  and  its 
prosperity  ;  but  I  could  not  make  up  my  mouth  to  te  11 
him  a  word  about  this  infernal  Rebellion  ! 

"  And  he  drank  it  in,  and  enjoyed  it  as  I  cannot 
tell  you.  He  grew  more  and  more  silent,  yet  I  never 
thought  he  was  tired  or  faint.  I  gave  him  a  glass  of 
water,  but  he  just  wet  his  lips,  and  told  me  not  to  go 
away.  Then  he  asked  me  to  bring  the  Presbyterian 
*  Book  of  Public  Prayer,'  which  lay  there,  and  said, 
with  a  smile,  that  it  would  open  at  the  right  place, — 
and  so  it  did.  There  was  his  double  red  mark  down 
the  pa^e  ;  and  I  knelt  down   and  read,  and    he  rev 


46         THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY. 

peaced  with  me,  '  For  ourselves  and  our  country,  C 
gracious  God,  we  thank  Thee,  that,  notwithstanding 
our  manifold  transgressions  of  Thy  holy '  laws,  Thou 
hast  continued  to  us  Thy  marvellous  kindness,'  —  and 
so  to  the  end  of  that  thanksgiving.  Then  he  turned  to 
the  end  of  the  same  book,  and  I  read  the  words  more 
familiar  to  me  :  '  Most  heartily  we  beseech  Thee  with 
Thy  favor  to  behold  and  bless  Thy  servant,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  all  others  in  authority,' 
—  and  the  rest  of  the  Episcopal  collect.  '  Danforth,' 
said  he,  '  I  have  repeated  those  prayers  night  and 
morning,  it  is  now  fifty-five  years.'  And  then  he 
said  he  would  go  to  sleep.  He  bent  me  down  over 
him  and  kissed  me ;  and  he  said,  '  Look  in  my  Bible, 
Danforth,  when  I  am  gone.'     And  I  went  away. 

"  But  I  had  no  thought  it  was  the  end.  I  thought 
he  w^as  tired  and  would  sleep.  I  knew  he  was  happy 
and  I  wanted  him  to  be  alone. 

"  But  in  an  hour,  when  the  doctor  went  in  gently m 
he  found  Nolan  had  breathed  his  life   away  with   a 
smile.     He  had  something  pressed  close   to  his  lips 
It  was  his  father's  badge  of  the  Order  of  the  Cincinnati. 

"  We  looked  in  his  Bible,  and  there  was  a  slip  ol 
paper  at  the  place  where  he  had  marked  the  text :  — 

"  '  They  desire  a  country,  even  a  heavenly  :  where  - 
fore  God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God  :  for 
he  hath  prepared  for  them  a  city.' 

"  On  this  slip  of  paper  he  had  written  :  — 

"  4  Bury  me  in  the  sea  ;  it  has  been  my  home,  and 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.        47 

1  love  it.  But  will  not  some  one  set  up  a  stone  for 
my  memory  at  Fort  Adams  or  at  Orleans,  that  my 
disgrace  may  not  be  more  than  I  ought  to  bear  ?  Say 
on  it :  — 

"  '  In  Memory  of 

"'PHILIP    NOLAN, 

"  *  Lieutenant  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States, 

"*He  loved  his  country  as  no  other  man  has  loved  her;  but  no 
man  deserved  less  at  her  hands-' " 


THE  LAST   OF   THE  FLORIDA. 

FROM  THE  INGHAM  PAPERS. 

[The  Florida,  Anglo-Kebel  pirate,  after  inflicting  horrible  in- 
juries on  the  commerce  of  America  and  the  good  name  of  Eng* 
land,  was  cut  out  by  Captain  Collins,  from  the  bay  of  Bahia,  by 
one  of  those  fortunate  mistakes  in  international  law  which  endear 
brave  men  to  the  nations  in  whose  interest  they  are  committed 
When  she  arrived  here  the  government  was  obliged  to  disavow 
the  act.  The  question  then  was,  as  we  had  her  by  mistake, 
what  we  should  do  with  her.  At  that  moment  the  National 
Sailors'  Fair  was  in  full  blast  at  Boston,  and  I  offered  my 
suggestion  in  answer  in  the  following  article,  which  was  published 
November  19,  1864,  in  the  "Boatswain's  Whistle,"  a  little  paper 
issued  at  the  fair. 

The  government  did  not  take  the  suggestion.  Very  unfortu- 
nately, before  the  Florida  was  got  ready  for  sea,  she  was  acci- 
dentally sunk  in  a  collision  with  a  tug  off  Fort  Monroe,  and  the 
heirs  of  the  Confederate  government  or  the  English  bond-hold- 
ers must  look  there  for  her,  if  the  Brazilian  government  will 
give  them  permission. 

For  the  benefit  of  the  New  York  Observer  I  will  state  that  a 
despatch  sent  round  the  world  in  a  spiral  direction  westward 
1,200  times,  would  not  really  arrive  at  its  destination  four  years 
before  it  started.     It  is  only  a  joke  which  suggests  it.] 


SPECIAL  DESPATCH. 

LETTER  FROM    CAPTAIN    INGHAM,  IN   COMMAND   OF   THE   FLOXIDA. 

[Received  four  years  in  advance  of  the  mail  by  a  lightning  express, 
which  has  gained  that  time  by  running  round  the  world  1,200  times 


THE   LAST   OF   THE   FLOKIDA.  49 

in  a  spiral  direction  westward  on  its  way  from  Brazil  to  oar  publica- 
tion-office.    Mrs.  Ingham's  address  not  being  known,  the  letter  is 
printed  for  her  information.] 
No.  29. 

Bahia,  Brazil,  April  1,  1868. 

My  dear  Wife  :  —  We  are  here  at  last,  thank  for- 
tune ;  and  I  shall  surrender  the  old  pirate  to-day  to 
the  officers  of  government.  We  have  been  saluted, 
are  to  be  feted,  and  perhaps  I  shall  be  made  a  Knight 
Commander  of  the  Golden  Goose.  I  never  was  so 
glad  as  when  I  saw  the  lights  on  the  San  Esperitu 
head-land,  which  makes  the  south  point  of  this  Bahia 
or  bay. 

You  will  not  have  received  my  No.  28  from  Loando, 
and  may  have  missed  26  and  24,  which  I  gave  to  out- 
ward bound  whalemen.  I  always  doubted  whether 
you  got  1,  7,  9,  and  11.  And  for  me  I  have  no  word 
of  you  since  you  waved  your  handkerchief  from  the 
window  in  Springfield  Street  on  the  morning  of  the 
1st  of  June,  1865,  nearly  four  years.  My  dear  child, 
you  will  not  know  me. 

Let  me  then  repeat,  very  briefly,  the  outline  of  this 
strange  cruise ;  and  when  the  letters  come,  you  can 
fill  in  the  blanks. 

The  government  had  determined  that  the  Florida 
must  be  returned  to  the  neutral  harbor  whence  she 
came.  They  had  put  her  in  complete  repair,  and  six 
months  of  diplomacy  had  made  the  proper  apologies 
to  the  Brazilian  government.  Meanwhile  Collins, 
who  had  captured  her   by  mistake,  had,  by  another 


50  CHki  LAS!    Ob    IH!     FLORIDA 

mistake,  been  made  an  admiral,  and  wafc  commanding 
a  squadron;    and   to    insure    hei    safe  and  respectful 
delivery,  I,  who  had   been  waiting  service,  was  un 
shelved,  and,  as  you  know,  bidden  to  take  command. 

She  was  in  apple-pie  order.  The  engines  had  been 
cleaned  up;  and  L  thought  we  could  make  a  quick 
thing  of  it.  I  was  a  little  dashed  when  1  found  the 
crew  was  small ;  but,  I  have  been  glad  enough  since 
that  we  had  no  more  mouths.  No  one  but  myself 
knew  our  destination.  The  men  thought  we  were  to 
take  despatches  to  the  Gulf  squadron. 

You  remember  I  had  had  only  verbal  orders  to  take 
command,  and  after  we  got  outside  the  bay  I  opene« 
my  sealed  despatches.     The  gist  of  them  was  in  these 
words :  — 

"You  will  understand  that  the  honor  of  this  gov 
ernment  is  pledged  for  the  safe  aep'verv  of  the  Florida 
to  the  government  of  Brazil.  You  will  therefore 
hazard  nothing  to  gain  speed.  The  quantity  of  your 
coal  has  been  adjusted  with  the  view  to  give  your 
vessel  her  best  trim,  and  the  supply  is  not  large.  You 
will  husband  it  with  care,  —  taking  every  precaution 
to  arrive  in  Bahia  safely  with  your  charge,  in  such 
time  as  your  best  discretion  may  suggest  to  .you  " 

*'  Your  best  discretion"  was  underscored. 

I  called  Prendergast,  and  showed  him  the  letter. 
Then  we  called  the  engineer  and  asked  aboul  the  coal. 
He  had  not  been  into  the  bunkers,  but  went  and  re- 
turned with  his  face  white,  through  the   b!a«*l<  gvime, 


THE    (.AST    OP    THR   FLORIDA  51 

to  report  "  n  »t  (bur  lays'  consumption  '  By  some 
cursed  accident,  lie  said,  the  bunkers  had  been  filled 
with  barrels  of  sait-pork  and  Hour  1 

On  this,  I  ordered  a  light  and  went  below.  There 
had  been  some  fatal  misunderstanding  somewhere. 
The  vessel  was  fitted  out  as  for  an  arctic  voyage. 
Everywhere  hard-bread,  flour,  pork,  beef,  vinegar, 
sour-krout ;  but,  clearly  enough,  not,  at  the  very  best, 
five  days  of  coal ! 

And  I  was  to  get  to  Brazil  with  this  old  pirate 
transformed  into  a  provision  ship,  "  at  my  best  discre- 
tion." 

tf  Prendergast,"  said  I,  "  we  will  take  it  easy. 
Were  you  ever  in  Bahia  ?  " 

"  Took  flour  there  in  '55,  and  lay  waiting  for  India- 
rubber  from  July  to  October.  Lost  six  men  by  yel- 
low-jack.' ' 

Prendergast  was  from  the  merchant  marine.  I  had 
known  him  since  we  were  children.  "  Ethan,"  said 
I,  "in  my  best  discretion  it  would  be  bad  to  arrive 
there  before  the  end  of  October.  Where  would  you 
go.' 

I  cannot  say  he  took  the  responsibility.  He  would 
not  take  it.  You  know,  my  dear,  of  course,  that  it 
was  I  who  suggested  Upernavik.  From  the  days  of 
the  old  marbled  paper  Northern  Regions,  —  through 
the  quarto  Ross  and  Parry  and  Back  and  the  nephew 
Ross  and  Kane  and  McClure  and  McClintock,  you 
know,  my  dear,  what  my  one    assion  has  been,  —  to 


52  THE   LAST   OF   THE   FLORIDA. 

see  those  floes  and  icebergs  for  myself.  Surely  you 
forgive  me,  or  at  least  excuse  me.  Do  not  you  ? 
Here  was  this  fast  steamer  under  me.  I  ought  not  to 
be  in  Bahia  before  October  25.  It  was  June  1.  Of 
course  we  went  to  Upernavik. 

I  will  not  say  I  regret  it  now.  Yet  I  will  say  that 
on  that  decision,  cautiously  made,  though  it  was  '*  on 
my  discretion,"  all  our  subsequent  misfortunes  hang. 
The  Danes  were  kind  to  us,  —  the  Governor  especi- 
ally, though  I  had  to  carry  the  poor  fellow  bad  news 
about  the  Duchies  and  the  Danish  war,  which  was  all 
fresh  then.  He  got  up  a  dance  for  us,  I  remember, 
and  there  I  wrote  No.  1  to  you.  I  could  not  of  course 
help  —  when  we  left  him  —  running  her  up  a  few  de- 
grees to  the  north,  just  to  see  whether  there  is  or  is 
not  that  passage  between  Igloolik  and  Prince  Rupert's 
Headland  (and  by  the  way  there  is}.  After  we 
passed  Igloolik,  there  was  such  splendid  weather,  that 
I  just  used  up  a  little  coal  to  drive  her  along  the  coast 
of  King  William's  Land ;  and  there,  as  we  waited  for 
little  duck-shooting  on  the  edge  of  a  floe  one  day,  as 
our  luck  ordered,  a  party  of  natives  came  on  board, 
and  we  treated  them  with  hard-tack  crumbs  and  whale- 
oi'L  They  fell  to  dancing,  and  we  to  laughing,  — 
they  danced  more  and  we  laughed  more,  till  the  oldest 
woman  tumbled  in  her  bear-skin  bloomers,  and  came 
with  a  smash  right  on  the  little  cast-iron  frame  by  the 
wheel,  which  screened  binnacle  and  compass,  My 
dear  child,  there  was  such  a  hullalu  and  such  a  mess 


THE  LAST   OF   THE   FLORIDA.  53 

together  as  I  remember  now.  We  had  to  apologize  , 
the  doctor  set  her  head  as  well  as  he  could.  We  gave 
them  gingerbread  from  the  cabin,  to  console  them, 
and  got  them  off  without  a  fight.  But  the  next  morn- 
ing when  I  cast  off  from  the  floe,  it  proved  the  beg- 
gars had  stolen  the  compass  card,  needle  and  all. 

My  dear  Mary,  there  was  not  another  bit  of  magne- 
tized iron  in  the  ship.  The  government  had  been  very 
shy  of  providing  instruments  of  any  kind  for  Confed- 
erate cruisers.  Poor  Ethan  had  traded  off  two  com- 
passes only  the  day  before  for  whalebone  spears  and 
skin  breeches,  neither  of  which  knew  the  north  star 
from  the  ace  of  spades.  And  this  thing  proved  of 
more  importance  than  you  will  think  ;  it  really  made 
me  feel  that  the  stuff  in  the  books  and  the  sermons 
about  the  mariners'  needle  was  not  quite  poetry. 

As  you  shall  see,  if  I  ever  get  through.  (Since  I 
began,  I  have  seen  the  Consul,  —  and  heard  the 
glorious  news  from  home,  —  and  am  to  be  presented 
to  the  port  authorities  to-morrow.)  It  was  the  most 
open  summer,  Mary,  ever  known  there.  If  I  had  not 
had  to  be  here  in  October,  I  would  have  driven  right 
through  Lancaster  Sound,  by  Baring's  Island,  and 
come  out  into  the  Pacific.  But  here  was  the  honor 
of  the  country,  and  we  merely  stole  back  through  the 
Straits.  It  was  well  enough  there,  —  all  daylight, 
you  know.  But  after  we  passed  Cape  Farewell,  we 
worked  her  into  such  fogs,  child,  as  you  never  saw  out 
of  Hyde  Park.     Did  .lot  I  long  fer  that  compass-card ! 


54  THE   LAST   OP   THE   FLOKIDA. 

We  sailed,  and  we  sailed,  and  we  sailed.  For  thirty  - 
seven  days  I  did  not  get  an  observation,  nor  speak  a 
ship !  October !  It  was  October  before  we  were 
warm.  At  noon  we  used  to  sail  where  we  thought  it 
was  lightest.  At  night  I  used  to  keep  two  men  up 
hr  a  lookout,  lash  the  wheel,  and  let  her  drift  like  a 
Dutchman.  One  way  as  good  as  another.  Mary, 
when  I  saw  the  sun  at  last,  enough  to  get  any  kind  of 
observation,  we  were  wellnigh  three  hundred  miles 
northeast  of  Iceland !     Talk  of  fogs  to  me ! 

Well,  I  set  her  south  again,  but  how  long  can  you 
know  if  you  are  sailing  south,  in  those  places  where 
the  northeast  winds  and  Scotch  mists  come  from ! 
Thank  Heaven,  we  got  south,  or  we  should  have  frozen 
to  death.  We  got  into  November,  and  we  got  into 
December.  We  were  as  far  south  as  37°  29' ;  and 
were  in  31°  17'  west  on  New  Year's  Day,  1866,  when 
the  second  officer  wished  me  a  happy  new  year,  con- 
gratulated me  on  the  fine  weather,  said  we  should  get 
a  good  observation,  and  asked  me  for  the  new  nautical 
almanac !  You  know  they  are  only  calculated  for  five 
years.  We  had  two  Greenwich  ones  on  board,  and 
they  ran  out  December  31,  1865.  But  the  govern- 
ment had  been  as  stingy  in  almanacs  as  in  coal  and 
compasses.  They  did  not  mean  to  keep  the  Confed- 
eracy in  almanacs. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  our  troubles.  I  had  to 
take  the  old  almanac,  with  Prenderga?t,  and  we  fig- 
ured  like    Cocker,  and    always   kept    ahead   with   a 


THE  LAST   OF   THE   FLOKIDA.  55 

month's  tables.  But  somehow,  —  I  feel  sure  we  were 
right,  —  but  something  was  wrong ;  and  after  a  few 
weeks  the  lunars  used  to  come  out  in  the  most  beastly 
way,  and  we  always  proved  to  be  on  the  top  of  the 
Andes  or  in  the  Marquesas  Islands,  or  anywhere  but 
in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Well  then,  by  good  luck,  we 
spoke  the  Winged  Batavian ;  could  not  speak  a 
word  of  Dutch,  nor  he  a  word  of  English  ;  but  he  let 
Ethan  copy  his  tables,  and  so  we  ran  for  St.  Sacra- 
ment. I  posted  8,  9,  and  10  there  ;  I  gave  the  Dutch- 
man 7,  which  I  hope  you  got,  but  fear. 

Well,  this  story  is  running  long ;  but  at  St.  Sa- 
crament we  started  again,  but,  as  ill-luck  would  have 
it,  without  a  clean  bill  of  health.  At  that  time  I  could 
have  run  into  Bahia  with  coal  —  of  which  I  had 
Douffht  some  —  in  a  week.  But  there  was  fever  on 
shore,  —  and  bad,  —  and  I  knew  we  must  make  pra- 
tique when  we  came  into  the  outer  harbor  here  ;  so, 
rather  than  do  that,  we  stretched  down  the  coast,  and 
met  that  cyclone  I  wrote  you  about,  and  had  to  put 
Into  Loando.  Understand,  this  was  the  first  time  we 
went  into  Loando.  I  have  learned  that  wretched 
hole  well  enough  since.  And  it  was  as  we  were  run- 
ning out  of  Loando,  that,  in  reversing  the  engine  too 
suddenly,  lest  we  should  smash  up  an  old  Portuguese 
woman's  bum-boat,  that  the  slides  or  supports  of 
the  piston-rod  just  shot  out  of  the  grooves  they  run  in 
on  the  top,  came  cleverly  down  on  the  outside  of  the 
carriage,  gave  that  odious  g-r-r-r,  which  I  can  hear 


56  THE   LAST   OF   THE   FLORID*.. 

now,  and  then,  dump,  —  down  came  the  whole  weight 
of  the  walking-beam,  bent  rod  and  carriages  all  into 
three  figure  8's,  and  there  we  were  !  I  had  as  lief 
run  the  boat  with  a  clothes-wringer  as  with  that  en- 
gine, any  day,  from  then  to  now. 

Well,  we  tinkered,  and  the  Portuguese  dock-yard 
people  tinkered.  We  took  out  this,  and  they  took  out 
that.  It  was  growing  sickly,  and  I  got  frightened, 
and  finally  I  shipped  the  propeller  and  took  it  on  board, 
and  started  under  such  canvas  as  we  had  left,  —  not 
much  after  the  cyclone,  —  for  the  North  and  the 
South  together  had  rather  rotted  the  original  duck. 

Then,  —  as  I  wrote  you  in  No.  11,  —  it  was  too  late 
to  get  to  Bahia  before  that  summer's  sickly  season, 
and  I  stretched  off  to  cooler  regions  again,  u  in  my 
best  discretion."  That  was  the  time  when  we  had  the 
fever  so  horribly  on  board ;  and  but  for  Wilder  the 
surgeon,  and  the  Falkland  Islands,  we  should  be  dead, 
every  man  of  us,  now.  But  we  touched  in  Queen's 
Bay  just  in  time.  The  Governor  (who  is  his  own 
only  subject)  was  very  cordial  and  jolly  and  kind. 
We  all  went  ashore,  and  pitched  tents,  and  ate  ducks 
and  penguins  till  the  men  grew  strong.  I  scraped 
her,  nearly  down  to  the  bends,  for  the  grass  floatea 
by  our  side  like  a  mermaid's  hair  as  we  sailed,  and 
the  once  swift  Florida  would  not  make  four  knots  an 
hour  on  the  wind ;  —  and  this  was  the  ship  I  was  to 
get  into  Bahia  in  good  order,  at  my  best  discretion ! 

Meanwhile  none  of  these  people  had  any  news  from 


THE  LAST   OF   THE  FLORIDA.  57 

America.  The  last  paper  at  the  Falkland  Islands  wa9 
a  London  Times  of  1864,  abusing  the  Yankees.  As 
for  the  Portuguese,  they  were  like  the  people  Logan 
saw  at  Vicksburg.  "  They  don't  know  anything 
good!  "  said  he  ;  "  they  don't  know  anything  at  all!" 
It  was  really  more  for  news  than  for  water  I  put  into 
Sta.  Lucia,  —  and  a  pretty  mess  I  made  of  it  there. 
We  looked  so  like  pirates  (as  at  bottom  the  old 
tub  is),  that  they  took  all  of  us  who  landed  to  the 
guard-house.  None  of  us  could  speak  Sta.  Lucia, 
whatever  that  tongue  may  be,  nor  understand  it. 
And  it  was  not  till  Ethan  fired  a  shell  from  the  100 
pound  Parrott  over  the  town  that  they  let  us  go.  I 
hope  the  dogs  sent  you  my  letters.  I  suppose  there 
was  another  infringement  of  neutrality.  But  if  the 
Brazilian  government  sends  this  ship  to  Sta.  Lucia,  I 
shall  not  command  her,  that 's  all ! 

Well !  what  happened  at  Loando  the  second  time, 
Valencia,  and  Puntos  Pimos,  and  Nueva  Salamanca, 
and  Loando  this  last  time,  you  know  and  will  know, 
and  why  we  loitered  so.  At  last,  thank  fortune,  here 
we  are.  Actually,  Mary,  this  ship  logged  on  the 
average  only  thirty-two  knots  a  day  for  the  last  week 
before  we  got  her  into  port. 

Now  think  of  the  ingratitude  of  men !  I  have 
brought  her  in  here,  "  according  to  my  best  discre- 
tion," and  do  you  believe,  these  hidalgos,  or  dons,  or 
senores,  or  whatever  they  are,  had  forgotten  she  ex- 
isted.    And  when  I  showed  them  to  her,  they  saii  in 

3* 


68  THE  LAST   OF   THE   FLORIDA. 

good  Portugal  that  I  was  a  liar.  Fortunately  the  Con- 
sul is  our  old  friend  Kingsley.  He  was  delighted  to 
see  me ;  thought  I  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
From  him  we  learned  that  the  Confederacy  was  blown 
sky-high  long  ago.  And  from  all  I  can  learn,  I  may 
have  the  Florida  back  again  for  my  own  private  yacht 
or  peculium,  unless  she  goes  to  Sta.  Lucia. 

Not  I,  my  friends !  Scrape  her,  and  mend  her,  and 
give  her  to  the  marines,  —  and  tell  them  her  story ; 
but  do  not  intrust  her  again  to  my  own  Polly's  own 

Frederic  Ingham 


A  PIECE  OF  POSSIBLE  HISIORY. 


[This  essay  was  first  published  in  the  Monthly  Religious 
Magazine,  Boston,  for  October,  1851.  One  or  another  professor 
of  chronology  has  since  taken  pains  to  tell  me  that  it  is  impos- 
sible. But  until  they  satisfy  themselves  whether  Homer  ever 
lived  at  all,  I  shall  hold  to  the  note  which  I  wrote  to  Miss  Dry- 
asdust's cousin,  which  I  printed  originally  at  the  end  of  the 
article,  and  which  will  be  found  there  in  this  collection.  The 
difficulties  in  the  geography  are  perhaps  worse  than  those  of 
chronology.] 


A  summer  bivouac  had  collected  together  a  little 
troop  of  soldiers  from  Joppa,  under  the  shelter  of 
a  grove,  where  they  had  spread  their  sheep-skins, 
tethered  their  horses,  and  pitched  a  single  tent.  With 
the  carelessness  of  soldiers,  they  were  chatting  away 
the  time  till  sleep  might  come,  and  help  them  to  to- 
morrow with  its  chances ;  perhaps  of  fight,  perhaps  of 
another  day  of  this  camp  indolence.  Below  the  garden 
siope  where  they  were  lounging,  the  rapid  torrent  of 
Kishon  ran  brawling  along.  A  full  moon  was  rising 
above  the  rough  edge  of  the  Eastern  hills,  and  the 
whole  scene  was  alive  with  the  loveliness  of  an  East- 
ern landscape. 


60  A  PIECE   OF  POSSIBLE   HISTORY. 

As  they  talked  together,  the  strains  of  a  harp  came 
bonie  down  the  stream  by  the  wind,  mingling  with 
the  rippling  of  the  brook. 

"The  boys  ^ere  right,"  said  the  captain  of  the 
little  company.  "They  asked  leave  to  go  up  the 
stream  to  spend  their  evening  with  the  Carmel-men ; 
and  said  that  they  had  there  a  harper,  who  would  sing 
and  play  for  them." 

"  Singing  at  night,  and  fighting  in  the  morning ! 
It  is  the  true  soldier's  life,"  said  another. 

"Who  have  they  there?"  asked  a  third. 

"  One  of  those  Ziklag-men,"  replied  the  chief.  "  He 
came  into  camp  a  few  days  ago,  seems  to  be  an  old 
favorite  of  the  king's,  and  is  posted  with  his  men,  by 
the  old  tomb  on  the  edge  of  the  hill.  If  you  cross  the 
brook,  he  is  not  far  from  the  Carmel  post ;  and  some 
of  his  young  men  have  made  acquaintance  there." 

"  One  is  not  a  soldier  for  nothing.  If  we  make 
enemies  at  sight,  we  make  friends  at  sight  too." 

"  Echish  here  says  that  the  harper  is  a  Jew." 

"What!—  a  deserter?" 

"  I  do  not  know  that ;  that  is  the  king's  lookout. 
Their  company  came  up  a  week  ago,  were  reviewed 
the  day  I  was  on  guard  at  the  outposts,  and  they  had 
this  post  I  tell  you  of  assigned  to  them.  So  the  king 
iii  satisfied  ;  and,  if  he  is,  I  am." 

"  Jew  or  Gentile,  Jehovah's  man  or  Dagon's  man," 
said  one  of  the  younger  soldiers,  with  a  half-irreverent 
tone,  "  I  wish  we  had  him  here  to  sing  to  us." 


A    PIECE    OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORT.  61 

*4  And  to  keep  us  awake,"  yawned  anothei. 

**  Or  to  keep  us  from  thinking  of  to-morrow,  '  said 
a  third. 

"  Can  nobody  sing  here,  or  play,  or  tell  an  old-time 
story  ?  " 

There  was  nobody.  The  only  two  soldiers  of  the 
post,  who  affected  musical  skill,  were  the  two  who 
had  gone  up  to  the  Carmelites'  bivouac  ;  and  the  little 
company  of  Joppa  —  catching  louder  notes  and  louder, 
as  the  bard's  inspiration  carried  him  farther  ana 
farther  away  —  crept  as  far  up  the  stream  as  the  limits 
of  their  station  would  permit ;  and  lay,  without  noise, 
to  catch,  as  they  best  could,  the  rich  tones  of  the  music 
as  it  swept  down  the  valley. 

Soothed  by  the  sound,  and  by  the  moonlight,  and 
by  the  summer  breeze,  they  were  just  in  mood  to  wel- 
come the  first  interruption  which  broke  the  quiet  of 
the  night.  It  was  the  approach  of  one  of  their  com 
pany,  who  had  been  detached  to  Accho  a  day  or  two 
before ;  and  who  came  hurrying  in  to  announce  the 
speedy  arrival  of  companions,  for  whom  he  bespoke 
a  welcome.  Just  as  they  were  to  leave  Accho,  he 
said,  that  day,  on  their  return  to  camp,  an  Ionian 
trading-vessel  had  entered  port.  He  and  his  fellow- 
soldiers  had  waited  to  help  her  moor,  anu  had  been 
chatting  with  her  seamen.  They  had  told  them  of 
the  chance  of  battle  to  which  they  were  returning ; 
and  two  or  three  of  the  younger  Ionians,  enchanted  at 
the  relief  from  the  sea's  imprisonment,  had  begged 


62  A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE   HISTORY. 

tbein  to  let  them  volunteer  in  company  with  them. 
These  men  had  come  up  into  the  country  with  the  sol- 
diers, therefore ;  and  he  who  had  broken  the  silence  of 
the  listeners  to  the  distant  serenade  had  hurried  on  to 
tell  his  comrades  that  such  visitors  were  on  their  way. 

They  soon  appeared  on  foot,  but  hardly  burdened 
by  the  light  packs  they  bore. 

A  soldier's  welcome  soon  made  the  Ionian  sailors  a* 
much  at  home  with  the  men  of  the  bivouac,  as  they 
had  been  through  the  day  with  the  detachment  from 
the  sea-board.  A  few  minutes  were  enough  to  draw 
out  sheep-skins  for  them  to  lie  upon,  a  skin  of  wine  for 
their  thirst,  a  bunch  of  raisins  and  some  oat-cakes  for 
their  hunger ;  a  few  minutes  more  had  told  the  news 
which  each  party  asked  from  the  other;  and  then 
these  sons  of  the  sea  and  these  war-bronzed  Philistines 
were  as  much  at  ease  with  each  other  as  if  they  had 
served  under  the  same  sky  for  years. 

"  We  were  listening  to  music,"  said  the  old  chief, 
"  when  you  came  up.  Some  of  our  young  men  have 
gone  up,  indeed,  to  the  picket  yonder,  to  hear  the 
harper  sing,  whose  voice  you  catch  sometimes,  when 
we  are  not  speaking." 

"  You  find  the  Muses  in  the  midst  of  arms,  then," 
Baid  one  of  the  young  Ionians. 

4t  Muses  ?  "  said  the  old  Philistine,  laughing.  u  That 
sounds  like  you  Greeks.  Ah !  sir,  in  our  rocks  here 
we  have  few  enough  Muses,  but  those  who  carry  these 
lances,  or  teach  us  how  to  trade  with  the  islands  for 
tin." 


A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORY.  63 

"That's  not  quite  fair/'  cried  another.  "The 
youngsters  who  are  gone  sing  well ;  and  one  of  them 
has  a  harp  i  should  be  glad  you  should  see.  He  made 
it  himself  from  a  gnarled  olive-root."  And  he  turned 
to  look  for  it. 

"  You  '11  not  find  it  in  the  tent :  the  boy  took  it  with 
him.  They  hoped  the  Ziklag  minstrel  might  ask 
them  to  sing,  I  suppose." 

"A  harp  of  olive-wood,"  said  the  Ionian,  "seems 
Muse-born  and  Pallas-blessed." 

And,  as  he  spoke,  one  of  the  new-comers  of  the 
Philistines  leaned  over,  and  whispered  to  the  chief: 
"  He  is  a  bard  himself,  and  we  made  him  promise  to 
sing  to  us.  I  brought  his  harp  with  me  that  he  might 
cheer  up  our  bivouac.     Pray,  do  you  ask  him." 

The  old  chief  needed  no  persuasion  ;  and  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  force  brightened  as  they  found  they  had 
a  minstrel  "  of  their  own  "  now,  when  the  old  man 
pressed  the  young  Ionian  courteously  to  let  them  hear 
him  :  "I  told  you,  sir,  that  we  had  no  Muses  of  our 
own  ;  but  we  welcome  all  the  more  those  who  come 
to  us  from  over  seas." 

Homer  smiled  ;  for  it  was  Homer  whom  he  spoke 
to,  —  Homer  still  in  the  freshness  of  his  unblinded 
youth.  He  took  the  harp  which  the  young  Philistine 
handed  to  him,  thrummed  upon  its  chords,  and  as  he 
tuned  them  said :  "  I  have  no  harp  of  olive-wood ;  we 
cut  this  out,  it  was  years  ago,  from  an  old  oleander  in 
the  marshes  behind  Colophon.  What  will  you  hear, 
gentlemen  ?" 


64  A  PIECE   OF  POSSIBLE  HISTORY. 

"  The  poet  chooses  for  himself/'  said  the  court] j 
old  captain. 

"  Let  me  sing  you,  then,  of  the  Olive  Harp  "  ;  and 
he  struck  the  chords  in  a  gentle,  quieting  harmony, 
which  attuned  itself  to  his  own  spirit,  pleased  as  he 
was  to  find  music  and  harmony  and  the  olive  of  peace 
in  the  midst  of  the  rough  bivouac,  where  he  had  come 
up  to  look  for  war.  But  he  was  destined  to  be  dis- 
appointed. Just  as  his  prelude  closed,  one  of  the 
young  soldiers  turned  upon  his  elbow,  and  whispered 
contemptuously  to  his  neighbor:  "Always  olives,  a) 
ways  peace  :  that 's  all  your  music  's  good  for  !  ': 

The  boy  spoke  too  loud,  and  Homer  caught  the  dis* 
contented  tone  and  words  with  an  ear  quicker  than 
the  speaker  had  given  him  credit  for.  He  ended  the 
prelude  with  a  sudden  crash  on  the  strings,  and  said 
shortly,  "  And  what  is  better  to  sing  of  than  the 
olive?'' 

The  more  courteous  Philistines  looked  sternly  on 
the  young  soldier ;  but  he  had  gone  too  far  to  be 
frightened,  and  he  flashed  back :  "  War  is  better.  My 
broadsword  is  better.  If  I  could  sing,  I  would  sing 
to  your  Ares ;  we  call  him  Mars !  " 

Homer  smiled  gravely.  "  Let  it  be  so,"  said  he ; 
and,  in  a  lower  tone,  to  the  captain,  who  was  troubled 
at  the  breach  of  courtesy,  he  added,  "Let  the  boy 
see  what  war  and  Mars  are  for." 

He  struck  another  prelude  and  began.  Then  was 
It  that  Homer  composed  his  "  Hymn    to  Mars."     In 


A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORY.  6.frJ 

wild  measure,  and  impetuous,  he  swept  along  through 
the  list  of  Mars's  titles  and  attributes ;  then  his  key 
changed,  and  his  bearers  listened  more  intently,  more 
solemnly,  as  in  a  graver  strain,  with  slower  music,  and 
in  almost  awed  dignity  of  voice,  the  bard  went  on .  — 

"  Helper  of  mortals,  hear ! 
As  thy  fires  give 
The  present  boldnesses  that  strive 
In  youth  for  honor ; 
So  would  I  likewise  wish  to  have  the  powei 
To  keep  off  from  my  head  thy  bitter  hour, 
And  quench  the  false  fire  of  my  soul's  low  kind, 
By  the  fit  ruling  of  my  highest  mind ! 

Control  that  sting  of  wealth 
That  stirs  me  on  still  to  the  horrid  scath 
Of  hideous  battle ! 

"Do  thou,  O  ever  blessed  !  give  me  still 
Presence  of  mind  to  put  in  act  my  will, 

Whate'er  the  occasion  be  ; 
And  so  to  live,  unforced  by  any  fear, 
Beneath  those  laws  of  peace,  that  never  are 
Affected  with  pollutions  popular 

Of  unjust  injury, 
As  to  bear  safe  the  burden  of  hard  fates, 
Of  foes  infiexive,  and  inhuman  hates !  " 

The  tones  died  away ;  the  company  was  hushed  for 
a  moment ;  and  the  old  chief  then  said  gravely  to  his 
petulant  follower,  "  That  is  what  men  fight  for,  boy/' 
But  the  boy  did  not  need  the  counsel.  Homer's  man- 
ner, his  voice,  the  music  itself,  the  spirit  of  the  song, 
as  much  as  the  words,  had  overcome  him  ;  and  the 
boasting  soldier  was  covering  his  tears  with  his  hands, 


6t)  A  PIECE   OF  POSSIBLE   HISTOKr. 

Homer  felt  at  once  (the  prince  of  gentlemen  he) 
that  the  little  outbreak,  and  the  rebuke  of  it,  had 
jarred  the  ease  of  their  unexpected  meeting.  How 
blessed  is  the  presence  of  mind  with  which  the  musi- 
cian of  real  genius  passes  from  song  to  song,  "  what- 
e'er  the  occasion  be  !  "  With  the  ease  of  genius  he 
changed  the  tone  of  his  melody  again,  and  sang  his 
own  hymn,  "To  Earth,  the  Mother  of  all." 

The  triumphant  strain  is  one  which  harmonizes  with 
every  sentiment ;  and  he  commanded  instantly  the  rapt 
attention  of  the  circle.  So  engrossed  was  he,  that  he 
did  not  seem  to  observe,  as  he  sang,  an  addition  to 
their  company  of  some  soldiers  from  above  in  the  val- 
ley, just  as  he  entered  on  the  passage  :  — 

"Happy,  then,  are  they 
Whom  thou,  O  great  in  reverence ! 
Are  bent  to  honor.     They  shall  all  things  find 
In  all  abundance  !     All  their  pastures  yield 
Herds  in  all  plenty.     All  their  roofs  are  filled 
With  rich  possessions. 
High  happiness  and  wealth  attend  them, 
While,  with  laws  well-ordered,  they 
Cities  of  happy  households  sway ; 
And  their  sons  exult  in  the  pleasure  of  youth, 
And  their  daughters  dance  with  the  flower-decked  girls, 
Who  play  among  the  flowers  of  summer  ! 
Such  are  the  honors  thy  full  hands  divide ; 
Mother  of  Gods  and  starry  Heaven's  bride !  "  * 

A  buzz  of  pleasure  and  a  smile  ran  round  the  cir- 
cle, in  which  the  new-comers  joined.     They  were  the 

*  After  Chapman. 


A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE   HISTORY.  67 

soldiers  who  had  been  to  hear  and  join  the  music  at 
the  Carniel-men's  post.  The  tones  of  Homer's  harp 
had  tempted  them  to  return ;  and  they  had  brought 
with  them  the  Hebrew  minstrel,  to  whom  they  had 
been  listening.  It  was  the  outlaw  David,  of  Bethle- 
hem Ephrata. 

David  had  listened  to  Homer  more  intently  than 
any  one ;  and,  as  the  pleased  applause  subsided,  the 
eyes  of  the  circle  gathered  upon  him,  and  the  manner 
of  all  showed  that  they  expected  him,  in  minstrel- 
fashion,  to  take  up  the  same  strain. 

He  accepted  the  implied  invitation,  played  a  short 
prelude,  and  taking  Homer's  suggestion  of  topic,  sang 
in  parallel  with  it :  — 

"I  will  sing  a  new  song  unto  thee,  O  God! 
Upon  psaltery  and  harp  will.  I  sing  praise  to  thee. 
Thou  art  He  that  giveth  salvation  to  kings, 
That  delivereth  David,  thy  servant,  from  the  sword. 
Rid  me  and  save  me  from  those  who  speak  vanity, 
Whose  right  hand  is  a  right  hand  of  falsehood,  — 
That  our  sons  may  be  as  plants  in  fresh  youth  , 
That  our  daughters  may  be  as  corner-stones,  — 
The  polished  stones  of  our  palaces  ; 
That  our  garners  may  be  full  with  all  manner  of  store  ; 
That  our  sheep  may  bring  forth  thousands  and  ten  thousands  in  th^ 

way; 
That  there  may  be  no  cry  nor  complaint  in  our  streets 
Happy  is  the  people  that  is  in  such  a  case ; 
Yea,  happy  is  the  people  whose  God  is  the  Lord  !  " 

The  melody  was  triumphant;  and  the  enthusiastic 
manner  yet  more  so.    The  Philistines  listened  delight- 


68  A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE   HISTORY. 

ed,  —  too  careless  of  religion,  they,  indeed  not  to  be 
catholic  in  presence  of  religious  enthusiasm ;  and  Ho- 
mer wore  the  exalted  expression  which  his  face  seldom 
wore.  For  the  first  time  since  his  childhood,  Homer 
felt  that  he  was  not  alone  in  the  world ! 

Who  shall  venture  to  tell  what  passed  between  the 
two  minstrels,  when  Homer,  leaving  his  couch,  crossed 
the  circle  at  once,  flung  himself  on  the  ground  by 
David's  side,  gave  him  his  hand;  when  they  looked 
each  other  in  the  face,  and  sank  down  into  the  rapid 
murmuring  of  talk,  which  constant  gesture  illustrated, 
but  did  not  fully  explain  to  the  rough  men  around 
them?  They  respected  the  poets'  colloquy  for  a 
while ;  but  then,  eager  again  to  hear  one  harp  or  the 
other,  they  persuaded  one  of  the  Ionian  sailors  to 
ask  Homer  again  to  sing  to  them. 

It  was  hard  to  persuade  Homer.  He  shook  his 
head,  and  turned  back  to  the  soldier-poet. 

"What  should  J  sing?"  he  said. 

They  did  not  enter  into  his  notion  :  hearers  will  not 
always.  And  so,  taking  his  question  literally,  they  re- 
plied, "  Sing  ?  Sing  us  of  the  snow-storm,  the  storm 
of  stones,  of  which  you  sang  at  noon." 

Poor  Homer !  It  was  easier  to  do  it  than  to  be 
pressed  to  do  it ;  and  he  struck  his  harp  again :  — 

"  It  was  as  when,  some  wintry  day,  to  men 

Jove  would,  in  might,  his  sharp  artillery  show; 
He  wills  his  winds  to  sleep,  and  over  plain 

And  mountains  paurs,  in  countless  flakes,  his  snow 


A   PIECE   OF    POSSIBLE    HISTORY.  69 

Deep  it  conceals  the  rocky  cliffs  and  hills, 
Then  covers  all  the  blooming  meadows  o'er, 

All  the  rich  monuments  of  mortals'  skill, 
All  ports  and  rocks  that  break  the  ocean-shore 

Rock,  haven,  plain,  are  buried  by  its  fall ; 

But  the  near  wave,  unchanging,  drinks  it  all. 

So  while  these  stony  tempests  veil  the  skies, 

While  this  on  Greeks,  and  that  on  Trojans  flies, 

Che  walls  unchanged  above  the  clamor  rise."  * 

Tie  men  looked  round  upon  David,  whose  expres- 
sion, &l<  he  returned  the  glance,  showed  that  he  had 
enjoyed  the  fragment  as  well  as  they.  But  when  they 
still  looked  expectant,  he  did  not  decline  the  unspoken 
invitation  ;  but,  taking  Homer's  harp,  sang,  as  if  the 
words  were  familiar  to  him :  — 

"  He  giveth  snow  like  wool ; 
He  scattereth  the  hoar-frost  like  ashes ; 
He  casteth  forth  his  ice  like  morsels ; 
Who  can  stand  before  his  cold  1 
He  sendeth  forth  his  word,  and  melteth  them ; 
He  causeth  his  wind  to  blow,  and  the  waters  flow." 

"  Always  this  '  He,1  "  said  one  of  the  young  soldiers 
to  another. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  ;  u  and  it  was  so  in  the  beginning 
of  the  evening,  when  we  were  above  there." 

"  There  is  a  strange  difference  between  the  two 
men,  though  the  one  plays  as  well  as  the  other,  and 
the  Greek  speaks  with  quite  as  little  foreign  accent  as 
the  Jew,  and  their  subjects  are  the  same." 

**  Yes,"  said  the  young  Philistine  harper ;  "  if  the 

*  After  Cowper  and  Pope.    Long  after  1 


70  A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE   HISTORY. 

Greek  should  sing  one  of  the  Hebrew's  songs,  you 
would  know  he  had  borrowed  it,  in  a  moment." 

"  And  so,  if  it  were  the  other  way." 

"  Of  course,"  said  their  old  captain,  joining  in  this 
conversation.  "  Homer,  if  you  call  him  so,  sings  the 
thing  made :  David  sings  the  maker.  Or,  rather, 
Homer  thinks  of  the  thino;  made :  David  thinks  of  the 
maker,  whatever  they  sing." 

"  I  was  going  to  say  that  Homer  would  sing  of 
cities ;  and  David,  of  the  life  in  them." 

"It  is  not  what  they  say  so  much,  as  the  way  they 
look  at  it.  The  Greek  sees  the  outside,  —  the  beauty 
of  the  thing;  the  Hebrew  —  " 

"  Hush  ! " 

For  David  and  his  new  friend  had  been  talking  too. 
Homer  had  told  him  of  the  storm  at  sea  they  met  a 
few  days  before ;  and  David,  I  think,  had  spoken  of  a 
mountain-tornado,  as  he  met  it  years  before.  In  the 
excitement  of  his  narrative  he  struck  the  harp,  which 
was  still  in  his  hand,  and  sung:  — 

"  Then  the  earth  shook  and  trembled, 
The  foundations  of  the  hills  moved  and  were  shaken, 

Because  He  was  wroth  ; 
There  went  up  a  smoke  out  of  his  nostrils, 
And  fire  out  of  his  mouth  devoured ; 

It  burned  with  living  coal. 
He  bowed  the  heavens  also,  and  came  down, 
And  darkness  was  under  his  feet ; 
He  rode  upon  a  cherub  and  did  fly, 
Yea,  he  did  fly  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 
He  made  darkness  his  resting-place. 


A   PIECE    OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORY.  71 

His  pavilion  were  dark  waters  and  clouds  of  the  skies ; 
At  the  brightness  before  him  his  clouds  passed  by 

Hail-stones  and  coals  of  fire. 
The  Lord  also  thundered  in  the  heavens, 
And  the  highest  gave  his  voice ; 
Hail-stones  and  coals  of  fire. 
Yea,  he  sent  out  his  arrows,  and  scattered  them, 
And  he  shot  out  his  lightnings,  and  discomfited  them. 
Then  the  channels  of  waters  were  seen, 
And  the  foundations  of  the  world  were  made  known, 

At  thy  rebuke,  O  Lord ! 
At  the  blast  of  the  breath  of  thy  nostrils. 
He  sent  from  above,  he  took  me, 
He  drew  me  out  of  many  waters." 

»4  Mine  were  but  a  few  verses,"  said  Homer  "  1 
am  more  than  repaid  by  yours.  Imagine  Nep>  oe, 
our  sea-god,  looking  on  a  battle :  — 

"  There  he  sat  high,  retired  from  the  seas ; 
There  looked  with  pity  on  his  Grecians  beaten; 
There  burned  with  rage  at  the  god-king  who  slew  them. 
Then  he  rushed  forward  from  the  rugged  mountains, 

Quickly  descending ; 
He  bent  the  forests  also  as  he  came  down, 
And  the  high  cliffs  shook  under  his  feet. 

Three  times  he  trod  upon  them, 
And  with  his  fourth  step  reached  the  home  he  sought  for. 

"  There  was  his  palace,  in  the  deep  waters  of  the  seas, 
Shining  with  gold,  and  builded  forever. 
There  he  yoked  him  his  swift-footed  horses ; 
Their  hoofs  are  brazen,  and  their  manes  are  golden. 

He  binds  them  with  golden  thongs, 

He  seizes  his  golden  goad, 
He  mounts  upon  his  chariot,  and  doth  fly : 
Yes !  he  drnes  them  forth  into  the  waves ! 


72  A   PIECE   OF  POSSIBLE  HISTORY. 

And  the  whales  rise  under  him  from  the  depths, 

For  they  know  he  is  their  king ; 
And  the  glad  sea  is  divided  into  parts, 
That  his  steeds  may  fly  along  quickly ; 
And  his  brazen  axle  passes  dry  between  the  waves, 
So,  bounding  fast,  they  bring  him  to  his  Grecians."  * 

And  the  poets  sank  again  into  talk. 

"  You  see  it,"  said  the  old  Philistine.  "  He  paints 
the  picture.     David  sings  the  life  of  the  picture. " 

"  Yes :  Homer  sees  what  he  sings  ;  David  feels  his 
song." 

"  Homer's  is  perfect  in  its  description." 

"  Yes ;  but  for  life,  for  the  soul  of  the  description, 
jou  need  the  Hebrew." 

"  Homer  might  be  blind  ;  and,  with  that  fancy  anc 
word-painting  power  of  his,  and  his  study  of  every- 
thing new,  he  would  paint  pictures  as  he  sang,  though 
unseen." 

"Yes,"  said  another;  "but  David  — "  And  he 
paused. 

"  But  David  ?  "  asked  the  chief. 

"  I  was  going  to  say  that  he  might  be  blind,  deaf, 
imprisoned,  exiled,  sick,  or  all  alone,  and  that  yet  he 
would  never  know  he  was  alone  ;  feeling  as  he  does, 
as  he  must  to  sing  so,  of  the  presence  of  this  Lord  of 
his ! " 

"  He  does  not  think  of  a  snow-flake,  but  as  sent 
from  him." 

u  While  the  snow-flake  is  reminding  Homer  of  that 

*  Iliad,  vL 


A    PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORY.  73 

hard,  worrying,  slinging  work    of  battle.     He  must 
have  seen  fight  himself.'' 

They  were  hushed  again.  For,  though  they  no 
longer  dared  ask  the  poets  to  sing  to  them,  —  so  en- 
grossed were  they  in  each  other's  society,  —  the 
soldiers  were  hardly  losers  from  this  modest  courtesy. 
For  the  poets  were  constantly  arousing  each  other  to 
strike  a  chord,  or  to  sing  some  snatch  of  remembered 
song.  And  so  it  was  that  Homer,  apropos  of  I  do  not 
know  what,  sang  in  a  sad  tone :  — 

"  Like  leaves  on  trees  the  race  of  man  is  found, 
Now  green  in  youth,  now  withering  on  the  ground : 
Another  race  the  following  spring  supplies  ; 
They  fall  successive,  and  successive  rise. 
So  generations  in  their  course  decay, 
So  flourish  these,  when  those  have  passed  away."* 

David  waited  for  a  change  in  the  strain  ;  but  Homei 
stopped.  The  young  Hebrew  asked  him  to  go  on ; 
but  Homer  said  that  the  passage  which  followed  was 
mere  narrative,  from  a  long  narrative  poem.  David 
looked  surprised  that  his  new  friend  had  not  pointed 
a  moral  as  he  sang ;  and  said  simply,  "  We  sing  thai 
thus  :  — 

"  As  for  man,  his  days  are  as  grass  ; 
As  a  flower  of  the  field,  so  he  flourisheth ; 
For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone, 
And  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more. 
But  the  mercy  of  the  Lord 
Is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting 
Of  them  that  fear  him  ; 

*  Iliad,  vi  —  Popss. 


74  A   PIECE   OF  POSSIBLE  HISTOB?. 

And  his  righteousness 
Unto  children's  children, 

To  such  as  keep  his  covenant, 
As  remember  his  commandments  to  do  them!" 

Homer's  face  flashed  delighted.  "  I,  like  you, 
*  keep  his  covenant,'"  he  cried;  and  then  without  a 
lyre,  for  his  was  still  in  David's  hands,  he  sang,  in 
clear  tone :  — 

"  Thou  bid'st  me  birds  obey ;  —  I  scorn  their  flight, 
If  on  the  left  they  rise,  or  on  the  right ! 
Heed  them  who  may,  the  will  of  Jove  I  own, 
Who  mortals  and  immortals  rules  alone  !  "* 

u  That  is  more  in  David's  key,"  said  the  young 
Philistine  harper,  seeing  that  the  poets  had  fallen  to 
talk  together  again.  "  But  how  would  it  sound  in  one 
of  the  hymns  on  one  of  our  feast-days  ?  " 

"  Who  mortals  and  immortals  rales  alone." 

"  How,  indeed  ?  "  cried  one  of  his  young  compan 
ions.    "  There  would  be  more  sense  in  what  the  priests 
say  and  sing,  if  each  were   not   quarrelling    for    his 
own,  —  Dagon    against    Astarte,  and  Astarte   against 
Dagon. 

The  old  captain  bent  over,  that  the  poets  might  not 
hear  him,  and  whispered :  "  There  it  is  that  the  He- 
brews have  so  much  more  heart  than  we  in  such  things. 
Miserable  fellows  though  they  are,  so  many  of  them, 
yet,  when  I  have  gone  through  their  whole  land  with 
the  caravans,  the  chances  have  been  that  any  serious- 

*  Iliad,  xii.,  after  Sotheby. 


A   PIECE   OP   POSSIBLE   HISTORY.  75 

mmd?d  man  spoke  of  no  God  but  this  4  He '  of 
David's." 

"What  is  his  name?" 

"  They  do  not  know  themselves,  I  believe." 

u  Well,  as  I  said  an  hour  ago,  God's  man  or  Da- 
gon's  man,  —  for  those  are  good  names  enough  for 
me, —  I  care  little;  but  I  should  like  to  sing  as  that 
young  fellow  does." 

"  My  boy,"  said  the  old  man,  "have  not  you  heard 
him  enough  to  see  that  it  is  not  he  that  sings,  near  as 
much  as  this  love  of  his  for  a  Spirit  he  does  not  name  ? 
It  is  that  spirited  heart  of  his  that  sings." 

u  You  sing  like  him  ?  Find  his  life,  boy  ;  and  per- 
haps it  may  sing  for  you." 

"  We  should  be  more  manly  men,  if  he  sang  to  us 
every  night." 

"  Or  if  the  other  did,"  said  an  Ionian  sailor. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  chief.  ".  And  yet,  I  think,  if  your 
countryman  sang  every  night  to  me,  he  would  make 
me  want  the  other.  Whether  David's  singing  would 
send  me  to  his,  I  do  not  feel  sure.  But  how  silly  to 
compare  them  !  As  well  compare  the  temple  in  Ac- 
cho  with  the  roar  of  a  whirlwind  —  " 

"  Or  the  point  of  my  lance  with  the  flight  of  an 
eagle.     The  men  are  in  two  worlds." 

"  O,  no !  that  is  saying  too  much.  You  said  thai 
one  could  paint  pictures  —  " 

"  —  Into  which  the  other  puts  life.  Yes,  I  did  saj 
so.     Wre  are  fortunate,  that  we  have  them  together." 


76  A  PIECE  OF  POSSIBLE  HISTORY 

"  For  this  man  sings  of  men  quite  as  well  as  me 
other  does ;  and  to  have  the  other  sing  of  God  —  ' 

"  —  Why,  it  completes  the  song.  Between  them 
they  bring  the  two  worlds  together.' ' 

"  He  bows  the  heavens,  and  comes  down,"  said  the 
boy  of  the  olive-harp,  trying  to  hum  David's  air. 

"  Let  us  ask  them  —  " 

And  just  then  there  rang  along  the  valley  the 
sound  of  a  distant  conch-shell.  The  soldiers  groaned, 
roused  up,  and  each  looked  for  his  own  side-arms  and 
his  own  skin. 

But  the  poets  talked  on  unheeding. 

The  old  chief  knocked  down  a  stack  of  lances  ;  but 
the  crash  did  not  rouse  them.  He  was  obliged  himself 
to  interrupt  their  eager  converse. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  break  in ;  but  the  night-horn  has 
sounded  to  rest,  and  the  guard  will  be  round  to  inspect 
the  posts.  I  am  sorry  to  hurry  you  away,  sir,"  he 
said  to  David. 

David  thanked  him  courteously. 

"  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest," 
said  Homer,  with  a  smile. 

"  We  will  all  meet  to-morrow.  And  may  to-night's 
dreams  be  good  omens  !  " 

"  If  we  dream  at  all,"  said  Homer  again  :  — 

"  Without  a  sign  his  sword  the  brave  man  draws, 
And  asks  no  omen  but  his  country's  cause." 

They  were  all  standing  together,  as  he  made  this 
careless  reply  to  the  captain ;  and  one  of  the  young 


A    PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE    HISTORY  7* 

men  drew  him  aside,  and  whispered  that  David  was 
in  arms  against  his  country. 

Plomer  was  troubled  that  he  had  spoken  as  he  did. 
But  the  young  Jew  looked  little  as  if  he  needed 
sympathy.  He  saw  the  doubt  and  regret  which  hung 
over  their  kindly  faces  ;  told  them  not  to  fear  for  him  ; 
singing,  as  he  bade  them  good  night,  and  with  one  of 
the  Carmel-men  walked  home  to  his  own  outpost :  — 

"  The  Lord  who  delivered  me  from  the  paw  of  the  lion, 
The  Lord  who  delivered  me  from  the  paw  of  the  bear, 
He  will  deliver  me." 

And  he  smiled  to  think  how  his  Carmelite  com- 
panion would  start,  if  he  knew  when  first  he  used 
those  words. 

So  they  parted,  as  men  who  should  meet  on  the 
morrow. 

But  God  disposes. 

David  had  left  to-morrow's  dangers  for  to-morrow 
to  care  for.  It  seemed  to  promise  him  that  he  must 
be  in  arms  against  Saul.  But,  unlike  us  in  our  eager- 
ness to  anticipate  our  conflicts  of  duty,  David  waited. 

And  the  Lord  delivered  him.  While  they  were 
singing  by  the  brookside,  the  proud  noblemen  of  the 
Philistine  army  had  forced  an  interview  with  their 
king ;  and,  in  true  native  Philistine  arrogance,  in- 
sisted that  u  this  Hebrew  "  and  his  men  should  be  sent 
away. 

With  the  light  of  morning  the  king  sent  for  the 
minstrel,  and  courteously  dismissed  him,  because  "  the 


78  A   PIECE   OF   POSSIBLE   HISTORY. 

princes  of  the  Philistines  have  said,  '  He  shall  not  go 
up  with  us  to  the  battle.' " 

So  David  marched  his  men  to  Ziklag. 

And  David  and  Homer  never  met  on  earth  again 

Note.  —  This  will  be  a  proper  place  to  print  the  following  not- 
which  I  was  obliged  to  write  to  a  second  cousin  of  Miss  Dryasdu*. 
after  she  had  read  the  MS.  of  the  article  above  :  — 

"  Dear  Madam  .  —  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  suggestion,  in  return- 
ing my  paper,  that  it  involves  a  piece  of  impossible  history.  You 
inform  me,  that,  '  according  to  the  nomenclatured  formulas  and  ho- 
mophonic  analogies  of  Professor  Gouraud,  of  never-to-be-forgotten 
memory,  "  A  Needle  is  less  useful  for  curing  a  Deaf  Head,  than 
for  putting  ear-rings  into  a  Miss's  lily-ears  "  ;  and  that  this  shows  that 
the  second  king  of  Judah,  named  David  (or  Deaf-head)  began  to 
reign  in  1055  B.C.,  and  died  1040  B.  C  ;  and  further,  that,  according 
to  the  same  authority,  '  Homer  flourished  when  the  Greeks  were  fond 
of  his  Poetry  ' ;  which,  being  interpreted,  signifies  that  he  flourished 
m  914  B.C.,  and,  consequently,  could  have  had  no  more  to  do  with 
David  than  to  plant  ivy  over  his  grave,  in  some  of  his  voyages  to 
Phoenicia. 

"  I  thank  you  for  the  suggestion.  I  knew  the  unforgettmg  pro- 
fessor ;  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  remembered  David  and  Homer  as 
his  near  friends.  But,  of  course,  to  such  a  memory,  a  century  or  two 
might  easily  slip  aside. 

"  Now,  did  you  look  up  Clement  ?  And  did  you  not  forget  tne 
Arundelian  Marbles  1  For,  if  you  will  take  the  long  estimates,  you 
will  find  that  some  folks  think  Homer  lived  as  long  ago  as  the  year 
1150,  and  some  that  it  was  as  'short  ago*  as  850.  And  some  set 
David  as  long  ago  as  1 1 70,  and  some  bring  him  down  to  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  later.  These  are  the  long  measures  and  the  short 
measures.  So  the  long  and  short  of  it  is,  that  you  oan  keep  the  twt 
poets  320  years  apart,  while  I  have  rather  more  than  a  century  which 
I  can  select  any  night  of,  for  a  bivouac  scene,  in  which  to  bring  thero 
together.    Believe  me,  my  dear  Miss  D.,  always  yours,  &c, 

"  Confess  that  you  forgo*,  the  Arundelian  Marbles  1 " 


THE  SOUTH  AMERICAN   EDITOR 


[1  AM  tempted  to  include  this  little  burlesque  in  this  collection 
simply  in  memory  of  the  Boston  Miscellany,  the  magazine  in 
which  it  was  published,  which  won  for  itself  a  brilliant  reputation 
in  its  short  career.  There  was  not  a  large  staff  of  writers  for 
the  Miscellany,  but  many  of  the  names  then  unknown  have 
since  won  distinction.  To  quote  them  in  the  accidental  order  in 
which  I  find  them  in  the  table  of  contents,  where  they  are  ar- 
ranged by  the  alphabetical  order  of  the  several  papers,  the  Mis- 
cellany contributors  were  Edward  Everett,  George  Lunt,  Nathan 
Hale,  Jr.,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  N.  P.  Willis,  W.  W.  Story,  J. 
R.  Lowell,  C.  N.  Emerson,  Alexander  H.  Everett,  Sarah  P. 
Hale,  W.  A.  Jones,  Cornelius  Matthews,  Mrs.  Kirkland,  J.  W. 
Ingraham,  H.  T.  Tuckerroan,  Evart  A.  Duyckinck,  Francis  A. 
Durivage,  Mrs.  J.  Webb,  Charles  F.  Powell,  Charles  W.  Storey, 
Lucretia  P.  Hale,  Charles  F.  Briggs,  William  E.  Channing, 
Charles  Lanman,  G.  H.  Hastings,  and  Elizabeth  B.  Barrett,  now 
Mrs.  Browning,  some  of  whose  earliest  poema  were  published  in 
ibis  magazine.  These  are  all  the  contributors  whose  names  ap- 
pear, excepting  the  writers  of  a  few  verses.  They  furnished 
nine  tenths  of  the  contents  of  the  magazine.  The  two  Everetts, 
^owell.  William  Story,  and  my  brother,  who  was  the  editor,  were 
the  principal  contributors.  And  I  am  tempted  to  say  that  I 
think  they  all  put  some  of  their  best  work  upon  this  magazine. 

The  misfortune  of  the  Miscellany,  I  suppose,  was  that  its  pub- 
lishers had  no  capital.  They  had  to  resort  to  the  claptraps  of 
fashion-plates  and  other  engravings,  in  the  hope  of  forcing  aa 


80  THE  SOUTH  AMERICAN  EDITOR. 

immediate  sale  upon  persons  who,  caring  for  fashion-plates,  did 
not  care  for  the  literary  character  of  the  enterprise.  It  gave  a 
very  happy  escape-pipe,  however,  for  the  high  spirits  of  some  of 
us  who  had  just  left  college,  and,  through  my  brother's  kindness, 
I  was  sometimes  permitted  to  contribute  to  the  journal.  In 
memory  of  those  early  days  of  authorship,  I  select  "  The  South 
American  Editor  "  to  publish  here.  For  the  benefit  of  the  New 
York  Observer,  I  will  state  that  the  story  is  not  true.  And 
lest  anv  should  complain  that  it  advocates  elopements,  I  beg 
to  observe,  in  the  seriousness  of  mature  life,  that  the  proposed 
elopement  did  not  succeed,  and  that  the  parties  who  proposed  it 
are  represented  as  having  no  guardians  or  keepers  but  them* 
selves.    The  article  was  first  published  in  1842.] 


It  is  now  more  than  six  years  since  I  received  the 
following  letter  from  an  old  classmate  of  mine,  Harry 
Barry,  who  had  been  studying  divinity,  and  was  then 
a  settled  minister.  It  was  an  answer  to  a  communica- 
tion I  had  sent  him  the  week  before. 

"  Topsham,  R.  I.,  January  22,  1836. 

"  To  say  the  truth,  my  dear  George,  your  letter  star- 
tled ms  a  little.  To  think  that  I,  scarcely  six  months 
settled  in  the  profession,  should  be  admitted  so  far  into 
the  romance  of  it  as  to  unite  forever  two  young  run- 
aways like  yourself  and  Miss  Julia  What's-her-name 
is  at  least  curious.     But,  to  give  you  your  due,  you 

hare  made  a  strong  case  of  it,  and  as  Miss (what  is 

her  name,  I  have  not  yours  at  hand)  is  not  under  any 
real  guardianship,  I  do  not  see  but  I  am  perfectly  jus- 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN   EDITOR.  81 

tified  in  complying  with  your  rather  odd  request.  You 
see  I  make  a  conscientious  matter  of  it. 

w  Write  me  word  when  it  shall  be,  and  I  will  be  sure 
to  be  ready.  Jane  is  of  course  in  my  counsels,  and 
she  will  make  your  little  wife  feel  as  much  at  home  as 
in  her  father's  parlor.     Trust  us  for  secrecy. 

"  I  met  her  last  week —  " 

But  the  rest  of  the  letter  has  nothing  to  do  with  tne 
story. 

The  elopement  alluded  to  in  it  (if  the  little  transac- 
tion deserves  so  high-sounding  a  name)  was,  in  every 
sense  of  the  words,  strictly  necessary.  Julia  Went- 
worth  had  resided  for  years  with  her  grandfather,  a 
pragmatic  old  gentleman,  to  whom  from  pure  affection 
she  had  long  yielded  an  obedience  which  he  would 
have  had  no  right  to  extort,  and  which  he  was  some- 
times disposed  to  abuse.  He  had  declared  in  the  most 
ingenuous  manner  that  she  should  never  marry  with 
his  consent  any  man  of  less  fortune  than  her  own  would 
be  ;  and  on  his  consent  rested  the  prospect  of  her  in- 
heriting his  property. 

Julia  and  I,  however,  care  little  for  money  now,  we 
cared  still  less  then  ]  and  her  own  little  property  and 
my  own  little  salary  made  us  esteem  ourselves  en- 
tirely independent  of  the  old  gentleman  and  his 
will. 

His  intention  respecting  the  poor  girl's  marriage  was 
thundered  in  her  ears  at  least  once  a  week,  so  that  we 

4* 


82  THE   SOUTH  AMERICAN  EDITOR. 

bcth  knew  that  I  had  no  need  to  make  court  to  him , 
indeed,  I  had  never  seen  him,  always  having  met  hei 
in  walking,  or  in  the  evening  at  party,  spectacle,  con- 
cert, or  lecture.  He  had  lately  been  more  domineer- 
ing than  usual,  and  I  had  but  little  difficulty  in  per- 
suading the  dear  girl  to  let  me  write  to  Harry  Barry, 
to  make  the  arrangement  to  which  he  assented  in  the 
letter  which  I  have  copied  above.  The  reasoning  which 
I  pressed  upon  her  is  obvious.  We  loved  each  other, 
— the  old  gentleman  could  not  help  that ;  and  as  he 
managed  to  make  us  very  uncomfortable  in  Boston,  in 
the  existing  state  of  affairs,  we  naturally  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  sooner  we  changed  that  state  the 
better.  Our  excursion  to  Topsham  would,  we  sup- 
posed, prove  a  very  disagreeable  business  to  him  ;  but 
we  knew  it  would  result  very  agreeably  for  us,  and  so, 
though  with  a  good  deal  of  maidenly  compunction  and 
granddaughterly  compassion  on  Julia's  part,  we  out- 
voted him. 

I  have  said  that  I  nad  no  fortune  to  enable  me  to 
come  near  the  old  gentleman's  beau  ideal  of  a  grand- 
son-in-law.  I  was  then  living  on  my  salary  as  a  South 
American  editor.  Does  the  reader  know  what  that 
is  ?  The  South  American  editor  of  a  newspaper  has 
the  uncontrolled  charge  of  its  South  American  news. 
Read  any  important  commercial  paper  for  a  month, 
and  at  the  end  of  it  tell  me  if  you  have  any  clear  con- 
ception of  the  condition  of  the  various  republics  (!) 
of  South  America.     If  you  have,  it  is  because  that 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN   EDITOR.  83 

journal  employs  an  individual  for  the  sole  purpose  oi 
setting  them  in  the  clearest  order  before  you,  and 
that  individual  is  its  South  American  editor.  The 
general-news  editor  of  the  paper  will  keep  the  run  of 
all  the  details  of  all  the  histories  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  but  he  hardly  attempts  this  in  addition.  If  he 
does,  he  fails.  It  is  therefore  necessary,  from  the  most 
cogent  reasons,  that  any  American  news  office  which 
has  a  strong  regard  for  the  consistency  or  truth  of  its 
South  American  intelligence  shall  employ  some  person 
competent  to  take  the  charge  which  I  held  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Boston  Daily  Argus  at  the  time  of 
which  I  am  speaking.  Before  that  enterprising  paper 
was  sold,  I  was  its  "  South  American  man " ;  this 
being  my  only  employment,  excepting  that  by  a  special 
agreement,  in  consideration  of  an  addition  to  my  sal- 
ary, I  was  engaged  to  attend  to  the  news  from  St. 
Domingo,  Guatemala,  and  Mexico.* 

*  I  do  not  know  that  this  explanation  is  at  all  clear.  Let  me,  as 
the  mathematicians  say,  give  an  instance  which  will  illustrate  the  im- 
portance of  this  profession.  It  is  now  a  few  months  since  I  received 
the  following  note  from  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Cabinet :  — 

"  Washington,  January  —,  1842. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  We  are  in  a  little  trouble  about  a  little  thing.  There 
are  now  in  this  city  no  less  than  three  gentlemen  bearing  credentials 
to  government  as  Charges  from  the  Republic  of  Oronoco.  They  are, 
of  course,  accredited  from  three  several  home  governments.  The 
President  signified,  when  the  first  arrived,  that  he  would  receive  the 
Charge  from  that  government,  on  the  2d  proximo,  but  none  of 
us  know  who  the  right  Charge  is.     The  newspapers  tell  nothing  satis 


84  THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN   EDITOK. 

Monday  afternoon,  just  a  fortnight  after  I  received 
Harry  Barry's  letter,  in  taking  my  afternoon  walk 
round  the  Common,  I  happened  to  meet  Julia.  I  al- 
ways walked  in  the  same  direction  when  I  was  alone. 
Julia  always  preferred  to  go  the  other  way  ;  it  was  the 
only  thing  in  which  we  differed.  When  we  were  to- 
gether I  always  went  her  way  of  course,  and  liked  it 
best. 

factory  about  it.     I  suppose  you  kuow :  can  you  write  me  word  be 
fore  the  2d  ? 

"  The  gentlemen  are  :  Dr.  Estremadura,  accredited  from  the  '  Con- 
stitutional Government,'  —  his  credentials  are  dated  the  2d  of 
November ;  Don  Paulo  Vibeira,  of  the  '  Friends  of  the  People/  5th 
of  November;  M.  Antonio  de  Vesga,  '  Constitution  of  1823/  Octo- 
ber 27th.  They  attach  great  importance  to  our  decision,  each  having 
scrip  to  sell.     In  haste,  truly  yours." 

To  this  letter  I  returned  the  following  reply  :  — 

u  Sir  :  —  Our  latest  dates  from  Oronoco  are  to  the  13th  ultimo. 
The  •  Constitution  of  '23'  was  then  in  full  power.  If,  however, 
the  policy  of  our  government  be  to  recognize  the  gentlemen  whose 
principals  shall  be  in  office  on  the  2d  proximo,  it  is  a  very  different 
affair. 

"  You  may  not  be  acquainted  with  the  formulas  for  ascertaining 
the  duration  of  any  given  modern  revolution.  I  now  use  the  follow- 
ing, which  I  find  almost  exactly  correct. 

"  Multiply  the  age  of  the  President  by  the  number  of  statute  miles 
from  the  equator,  divide  by  the  number  of  pages  in  the  given  Consti- 
tation  ;  the  result  will  be  the  length  of  the  outbreak,  in  days.  This 
formula  includes,  as  you  will  see,  an  allowance  for  the  heat  of  the  cli- 
mate, the  zeal  of  the  leader,  and  the  verbosity  of  the  theorists.  The 
Constitution  of  1823  was  reproclaimed  on  the  25th  of  October  last 
If  yon  will  give  the  above  formula  into  the  hands  of  any  of  youi 
clerks,  the  calculation  from  it  will  show  that  that  government  will  gr 


THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN   EDITOR.  86 

I  had  told  her,  long  before,  all  about  Harry's  letter, 
and  the  dear  girl  in  this  walk,  after  a  little  blushing 
and  sighing,  and  half  faltering  and  half  hesitating  and 
feeling  uncertain,  yielded  to  my  last  and  warmest 
persuasions,  and  agreed  to  go  to  Mrs.  Pollexfen's  ball 
that  evening,  ready  to  leave  it  with  me  in  my 
buggy  sleigh,  for  a  three  hours'  ride  to  Topsham, 
where  we  both  knew  Harry  would  be  waiting  for 
us.  I  do  not  know  how  she  managed  to  get  through 
tea  that  evening  with  her  lion  of  a  grandfather,  for 
she  could  not  then  cover  her  tearful  eyes  with  a  veil 
as  she  did  through  the  last  half  of  our  walk  together. 

out  of  power  on  the  1st  of  February,  at  25  minutes  after  1,  p.  m.  Your 
choice,  on  the  2d,  must  be  therefore  between  Vibeira  and  Estre- 
madura;  here  you  will  have  no  difficulty.  Bobadil  (Vibeira's  princi- 
pal) was  on  the  13th  ultimo  confined  under  sentence  of  death,  at  such 
a  distance  from  the  capital  that  he  cannot  possibly  escape  and  get  into 
power  before  the  2d  of  February.  The  '  Friends  of  the  People,'  in 
Oronoco,  have  always  moved  slowly ;  they  never  got  up  an  insurrection 
in  less  than  nineteen  days' canvassing;  that  was  in  1839.  Generally 
they  are  even  longer.  Of  course,  Estremadura  will  be  your  man. 
"  Believe  me,  sir,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  George  Hackmatack." 

The  Cabinet  had  the  good  sense  to  act  on  my  advice.  My  informa- 
tion proved  nearly  correct,  the  only  error  being  one  of  seven  minutes 
in  the  downfall  of  the  1823  Constitution.  This  arose  from  my  making 
no  allowance  for  difference  of  longitude  between  Piaut,  where  their 
government  was  established,  and  Opee,  where  it  was  crushed.  The 
difference  of  time  between  those  places  is  six  minutes  and  fifty-three 
seconds,  as  the  reader  may  see  on  a  globe. 

Estremadura  was,  of  course,  presented  to  the  President,  and  sold 
bis  scrip. 


86  THE    SOUTH   AMERICAN   EDITOR. 

1  know  that  I  got  through  my  tea  and  such  like  ordi- 
nary affairs  by  skipping  them.  I  made  all  my  arrange- 
ments, bade  Gage  and  Streeter  be  ready  with  the  sleigh 
at  my  lodgings  (fortunately  only  two  doors  from  Mrs. 
Pollexfen's)  at  half-past  nine  o'clock,  and  was  the 
highest  spirited  of  men  when,  on  returning  to  those 
lodgings  myself  at  eight  o'clock,  I  found  the  following 
missives  from  the  Argus  office,  which  had  been  accu 
mulating  through  the  afternoon. 

No.  1. 

"  4  o'clock,  p.  M. 

u  Dear  Sir  :  —  The  southern  mail,  just  in,  brings 
Buenos  Ayres  papers  six  days  later,  by  the  Medora,  at 
Baltimore. 

"  In  haste,  J.  C." 

(Mr.  C.  was  the  gentleman  who  opened  the  news- 
papers, and  arranged  the  deaths  and  marriages;  he 
always  kindly  sent  for  me  when  I  was  out  of  the  way.") 


No.  2. 

"  5  o'clock,  p,  m. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  The  U.  S.  ship  Preble   is   in   at 

Portsmouth ;  latest  from  Valparaiso.  The  mail  is  not 
sorted. 

«  Yours,  J.  D." 

(Mr.  D.  arranged  the  ship  news  for  the  Argus.) 


THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN    EDITOR.  87 

No.  3. 

"  6  o'clock,  p.  M. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  I  boarded,  this  morning,  off  Cape 
Cod,  the  Blunderhead,  from  Carthagena,  and  have  a 
week's  later  papers. 

"  Truly  yours,  J.  E." 

(Mr.  E.  was  the  enterprising  commodore  of  our 
news-boats.) 

No.  4. 

1  6£  o'clock,  p.  m. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  I  have  just  opened  accidentally  the 
enclosed  letter,  from  our  correspondent  at  Panama. 
You  wrll  see  that  it  bears  a  New  Orleans  post-mark. 
I  hope  it  may  prove  exclusive. 

"  Yours,  J.  F.' 


» 


(Mr.  F.  was  general  editor  of  the  Argus.) 

No.  5.       ,  * 

"  6£  o'clock,  p.  m. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  A  seaman,  who  appears  to  be  an  in- 
telligent man,  has  arrived  this  morning  at  New  Bed- 
ford, and  says  he  has  later  news  of  the  rebellion  in 
Ecuador  than  any  published.  The  Rosina  (his  ves- 
sel) brought  no  papers.  I  bade  him  call  at  youl 
room  at  eight  o'clock,  which  he  promised  to  do. 

"  Truly  yours,  J.  G." 

(Mr.  G.  was  clerk  in  the  Argus  counting-room.) 


88  TUE   SOUTH   AMERICAN  EDITOR. 

No    6. 

"  7£  o'clock,  p.  ai. 

"  Dear  Sir  :  —  The  papers  by  the  Ville  de  Lyon, 
from  Havre,  which  I  have  just  received,  mention  the 
reported  escape  of  M.  Bonpland  from  Paraguay,  the 
presumed  death  of  Dr.  Francia,  the  probable  over- 
throw of  the  government,  the  possible  establishment 
of  a  republic,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  I  understand 
in  the  least. 

"  These  papers  had  not  come  to  hand  when  I  wrote 
you  this  afternoon.  I  have  left  them  on  your  desk  at 
the  office. 

"In  haste,  J.  F." 

1  wTas  taken  all  aback  by  this  mass  of  odd-looking 
little  notes.  I  had  spent  the  afternoon  in  drilling  Sin- 
gelton,  the  kindest  of  friends,  as  to  what  he  should  do 
in  any  probable  contingency  of  news  of  the  next  forty- 
eight  hours,  for  I  did  not  intend  to  be  absent  on  a  wed- 
ding tour  even  longer  than  that  time ;  but  I  felt  that 
Singleton  was  entirely  unequal  to  such  a  storm  of  in- 
telligence as  this ;  and,  as  I  hurried  down  to  the  of- 
fice, my  chief  sensation  was  that  of  gratitude  that 
the  cloud  had  broken  before  I  was  out  of  the  way , 
for  I  knew  I  could  do  a  great  deal  in  an  hour,  and 
I  had  faith  that  I  might  slur  over  my  digest  as  quickly 
as  possible,  and  be  at  Mrs.  Pollexfen's  within  the 
time  arranged. 

I  rushed  into  the  office  in  that  state  of  zeal  in  which 
a  man  may  do  anything  in  almost  no  time.     But  first, 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN   EDITOR.  8U 

I  had  to  go  into  the  conversation-room,  and  get  the 
oral  news  from  my  sailor ;  then  Mr.  H.,  from  one  of 
the  little  news-boats,  came  to  me  in  high  glee,  with 
some  Venezuela  Gazettes,  which  he  had  just  extorted 
from  a  skipper,  who,  with  great  plausibility,  told  him 
that  he  knew  his  vessel  had  brought  no  news,  for  she 
never  had  before.  (N.  B.  In  this  instance  she  was  the 
only  vessel  to  sail,  after  a  three  months'  blockade.) 
And  then  I  had  handed  to  me  by  Mr.  J.,  one  of  the 
commercial  gentlemen,  a  private  letter  from  Rio  Ja- 
neiro, which  had  been  lent  him.  After  these  delays, 
with  full  materials,  I  sprang  to  work  —  read,  read, 
read ;  wonder,  wonder,  wonder  ;  guess,  guess,  guess  ; 
scratch,  scratch,  scratch  ;  and  scribble,  scribble,  scrib- 
ble, make  the  only  transcript  I  can  give  of  the  opera- 
tions which  followed.  At  first,  several  of  the  other 
gentlemen  in  the  room  sat  around  me ;  but  soon  Mr. 
C,  having  settled  the  deaths  and  marriages,  and  the 
police  and  municipal  reporters  immediately  after  him, 
screwed  out  their  lamps  and  went  home ;  then  the 
editor  himself,  then  the  legislative  reporters,  then  the 
commercial  editors,  then  the  ship-news  conductor,  and 
left  me  alone. 

I  envied  them  that  they  got  through  so  much  earlier 
than  usual,  but  scratched  on,  only  interrupted  by  the 
compositors  coming  in  for  the  pages  of  my  copy  as 
I  finished  them  ;  and  finally,  having  made  my  last 
translation  from  the  last  Boletin  Extraor dinar io,  sprang 
up,  shouting,  "Now  for  Mrs.   P.'s,"  and  looked    at 


90  THE   SOUTH  AMERICAN  EDITOR. 

my  watch.  It  was  half  past  one  !  *  I  thought  of 
course  it  had  stopped,  —  no  ;  and  my  last  manuscript 
page  was  numbered  twenty-eight !  Had  I  been  writ- 
ing there  five  hours  ?     Yes  ! 

Reader,  when  you  are  an  editor,  with  a  continent's 
explosions  to  describe,  you  will  understand  how  one 
may  be  unconscious  of  the  passage  of  time. 

I  walked  home,  sad  at  heart.  There  was  no  light  in 
all  Mr.  Wentworth's  house ;  there  was  none  in  any 
of  Mrs.  Pollexfen's  windows  ;  f  and  the  last  carriage  of 
her  last  relation  had  left  her  door.  I  stumbled  up 
stairs  in  the  dark,  and  threw  myself  on  my  bed.  What 
should  I  say,  what  could  I  say,  to  Julia  ?  Thus  pon- 
dering, I  fell  asleep. 

If  I  were  writing  a  novel,  I  should  say  that,  at  a  late 
hour  the  next  day,  I  listlessly  drew  aside  the  azure 
curtains  of  my  couch,  and  languidly  rang  a  silver  bell 
which  stood  on  my  dressing-table,  and  received  from  a 
page  dressed  in  an  Oriental  costume  the  notes  and  let 
ters  which  had  been  left  for  me  since  morning,  and  the 
uewspapers  of  the  day. 

I  am  not  writing  a  novel. 

The   next  morning,  about  ten  o'clock,  I  arose  and 

*  Newspaper  men  of  1868  will  be  amused  to  think  that  half  past 
one  was  late  in  1836.  At  that  time  the  "Great  Western  Mail"  was 
due  in  Boston  at  6  P.  M.,  and  there  was  no  later  news  except "  local," 
or  an  occasional  horse  express. 

t  The  reader  will  observe  the  Arcadian  habits  of  1836,  when  the  Ger 
man  was  yet  vnknown. 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN    EDITOR.  91 

went  down  to  breakfast.  As  I  sat  at  the  littered 
table  which  every  one  else  had  left,  dreading  to  attack 
my  cold  coffee  and  toast,  I  caught  sight  of  the  morn- 
ing papers,  and  received  some  little  consolation  from 
them.  There  was  the  Argus  with  its  three  columns 
and  a  half  of  "  Important  from  South  America," 
while  none  of  the  other  papers  had  a  square  of  any 
intelligibility  excepting  what  they  had  copied  from  the 
Argus  the  day  before.  I  felt  a  grim  smile  creeping 
over  my  face  as  I  observed  this  signal  triumph  of 
our  paper,  and  ventured  to  take  a  sip  of  the  black 
broth  as  I  glanced  down  my  own  article  to  see  if  there 
were  any  glaring  misprints  in  it.  Before  I  took  the 
second  sip,  however,  a  loud  peal  at  the  door-bell  an- 
nounced a  stranger,  and,  immediately  after,  a  note  was 
brought  in  for  me  which  I  knew  was  in  Julia's  hand- 
writing. 

"  Dear  George  :  —  Don't  be  angry  ;  it  was  not 
my  fault,  really  it  was  not.  Grandfather  came  home 
just  as  I  was  leaving  last  night,  and  was  so  angry, 
and  said  I  should  not  go  to  the  party,  and  I  had  to 
sit  with  him  all  the  evening.  Do  write  to  me  or 
let  me  see  you  ;  do  something  —  " 

What  a  load  that  note  took  off  my  mind  !  And  yet, 
what  must  the  poor  girl  have  suffered  !  Could  the 
old  man  suspect  ?  Singleton  was  true  to  me  as  steel,  I 
knew.     He  could  not  have  whispered, — nor  Barry; 


92  THE   SOUTH  AMERICAN  EDITOP- 

out  that  Jane,  Barry's  wife.  O  woman  !  woman  1 
what  newsmongers  they  are  !  Here  were  Julia  and 
I,  made  miserable  for  life,  perhaps,  merely  that  Jane 
Barry  might  have  a  good  story  to  tell.  What  right 
had  Barry  to  a  wife  ?  Not  four  years  out  of  college, 
and  hardly  settled  in  his  parish.  To  think  that  I  had 
been  fool  enough  to  trust  even  him  with  the  particu- 
lars of  my  all-important  secret !  But  here  I  was  again 
interrupted,  coffee-cup  still  full,  toast  still  untasted,  by 
another  missive. 

"  Tuesday  morning. 

"  Sir  :  —  I  wish  to  see  you  this  morning.  Will  you 
call  upon  me,  or  appoint  a  time  and  place  where  I 
may  meet  you  ? 

"Yours,  Jedediah  Wentworth." 

"  Send  word  by  the  bearer." 

u  Tell  Mr.  Wentworth  I  will  call  at  his  house  at 
eleven  o'clock." 

The  cat  was  certainly  out ;  Mrs.  Barry  had  told,  or 
some  one  else  had,  who  I  did  not  know  and  hardly 
cared.  The  scene  was  to  come  now,  and  I  was  almost 
glad  of  it.  Poor  Julia !  what  a  time  she  must  have 
had  with  the  old  bear ! 

At  eleven  o'clock  I  was  ushered  into  Mr.  Wentworth's 
sitting-room.  Julia  was  there,  but  before  I  had  even 
spoken  to  her  the  old  gentleman  came  bustling  across 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN   EDITOR.  93 

the  room,  with  his  "Mr.  Hackmatack,  I  suppose";  and 
then  followed  a  formal  introduction  between  me  and 
her,  which  both  of  us  bore  with  the  most  praiseworthy 
.ortitude  and  composure,  neither  evincing,  even  by  a 
glance,  that  we  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of  each  other 
before.  Here  was  another  weight  off  my  mind  and 
Julia's.  I  had  wronged  poor  Mrs.  Barry.  The 
secret  was  not  out  —  what  could  he  want  ?  It  very 
soon  appeared. 

After  a  minute's  discussion  of  the  weather,  th6 
snow,  and  the  thermometer,  the  old  gentleman  drew 
up  his  chair  to  mine,  with  "  I  think,  sir,  you  are  con- 
nected with  the  Argus  office?" 

"  Yes,  sir  ;  I  am  its  South  American  editor. 

"  Yes  !  "  roared  the  old  man,  in  a  sudden  rage. 
"  Sir,  I  wish  South  America  w^as  sunk  in  the  depths 
of  the  sea !  " 

"  I  am  sure  I  do,  sir,"  replied  I,  glancing  at  Julia, 
who  did  not,  however,  understand  me.  I  had  not 
fully  passed  out  of  my  last  night's  distress. 

My  sympathizing  zeal  soothed  the  old  gentleman  a 
little,  and  he  said  more  coolly,  in  an  undertone:  "Well, 
sir,  you  are  well  informed,  no  doubt ;  tell  me,  in  strict 
secrecy,  sir,  between  you  and  me,  do  you  —  do  you 
place  full  credit  —  entire  confidence  in  the  intelligence 
in  this  morning's  paper  ?  " 

"Excuse  me,  sir;  what  paper  do  you  allude  to? 
Ah !  the  Argus,  I  see.  Certainly,  sir  ;  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt  that  it  is  perfectly  correct." 


94  THE    SOUTH   AMERICAN   EDITOR. 

"  No  doubt,  sir  !  Do  you  mean  to  insult  me  ?  — • 
Julia,  I  told  you  so ;  he  says  there  is  no  doubt  it  is 
true.  Tell  me  again  there  is  some  mistake,  will 
you  ?  "  The  poor  girl  had  been  trying  to  soothe  him 
with  the  constant  remark  of  uninformed  people,  that 
tne  newspapers  are  always  in  the  wrong.  He  turned 
from  her,  and  rose  from  his  chair  in  a  positive  rage. 
She  was  half  crying.  I  never  saw  her  more  dis- 
tressed. What  did  all  this  mean  ?  Were  one,  two, 
or  all  of  us  crazy  ? 

It  soon  appeared.  After  pacing  the  length  of  the 
room  once  or  twice,  Wentworth  came  up  to  me  again, 
and,  attempting  to  appear  cool,  said  between  his  closed 
lips :  "Do  you  say  you  have  no  doubt  that  Rio 
Janeiro  is  strictly  blockaded?" 

"  Not  the  slightest  in  the  world,"  said  I,  trying  to 
seem  unconcerned. 

"  Not  the  slightest,  sir  ?  What  are  you  so  impudent 
and  cool  about  it  for  ?  Do  you  think  you  are  talking 
of  the  opening  of  a  rose-bud  or  the  death  of  a  mos- 
quito ?  Have  you  no  sympathy  with  the  sufferings 
of  a  fellow-creature  ?  Why,  sir  !  "  and  the  old  man's 
teeth  chattered  as  he  spoke,  "  I  have  five  cargoes  of 
piOur  on  their  way  to  Rio,  and  their  captains  will  — 
Damn  it,  sir,  I  shall  lose  the  whole  venture." 

The  secret  was  out.  The  old  fool  had  been  sending 
dour  to  Rio,  knowing  as  little  of  the  state  of  affairs 
there  as  a  child. 

"  And  do  you  really  mean,  sir,"  continued  the  old 


THE    SOUTH    AMERICAN    EDITOR.  95 

man,  "  that  there  is  an  embargo  in  force  in  Monte 
Video?" 

"  Certainly,  sir  ;  but  I  'm  very  sorry  for  it." 

"  Sorry  for  it !  of  course  you  are  ;  —  and  that  all 
foreigners  are  sent  out  of  Buenos  Ayres?  " 

44  Undoubtedly,  sir.     I  wish  —  " 

"  Who  does  not  wish  so  ?  Why,  sir,  my  correspond- 
ing  friends    there   are    half   across    the    sea    by    this 

time.     I  wish  Rosas  was  in and  that  the  Indians 

have  risen  near  Maranham  ?  " 

44  Undoubtedly,  sir." 

44  Undoubtedly  !  I  tell  you,  sir,  I  have  two  vessels 
waiting  for  cargoes  of  India-rubbers  there,  under  a 
blunder-headed  captain,  who  will  do  nothing  he  has 
not  been  bidden  to,  —  obey  his  orders  if  he  breaks  his 
owners.  You  smile,  sir  ?  Why,  I  should  have  made 
thirty  thousand  dollars  this  winter,  sir,  by  my  India- 
rubbers,  if  we  had  not  had  this  devilish  mild,  open 
weather,  you  and  Miss  Julia  there  have  been  prais- 
ing so.  But  next  winter  must  be  a  severe  one,  and 
with  those  India-rubbers  I  should  have  made —  But 
now  those  Indians,  —  pshaw !  And  a  revolution  in 
Chili  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

44  No  trade  there  !     And  in  Venezuela?  " 

44  Yes,  sir," 

44  Yes,  sir  ;  yes,  sir ;  yes,  sir ;  yes,  sir  !  Sir,  I  am 
ruined.  Say  4  Yes,  sir,'  to  that.  I  have  thirteen 
vessels  at  this  moment  in  the  South  American  trade, 


96  THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN   EDITOR. 

sir ;  say  '  Yes,  sir,'  to  that.  Half  of  them  will  be 
taken  by  the  piratical  scoundrels ;  say  i  Yes,  sir,'  to 
that.  Their  insurance  will  not  cover  them  ;  say  '  Yes, 
sir,'  to  that.  The  other  half  will  forfeit  their  cargoes, 
or  sell  them  for  next  to  nothing ;  say  '  Yes,  sir/  to 
that.  I  tell  you  I  am  a  ruined  man,  and  I  wish  the 
South  America,  and  your  daily  Argus,  and  you — " 

Here  the  old  gentleman's  old-school  breeding  got 
the  better  of  his  rage,  and  he  sank  down  in  his  arm- 
chair, and,  bursting  into  tears,  said  :  "  Excuse  me, 
sir,  —  excuse  me,  sir,  —  I  am  too  warm." 

We  all  sat  for  a  few  moments  in  silence,  but  then  I 
took  my  share  of  the  conversation.  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  the  old  man's  face  light  up  little  by  little,  as 
I  showed  him  that  to  a  person  who  understood  the 
politics  and  condition  of  the  mercurial  country  with 
which  he  had  ignorantly  attempted  to  trade,  his  condi- 
tion was  not  near  so  bad  as  he  thought  it:  that  though 
one  port  was  blockaded,  another  was  opened  ;  that 
though  one  revolution  thwarted  him,  a  few  weeks 
would  show  another  which  would  favor  him  ;  that  the 
goods  wrhich,  as  he  saw,  would  be  worthless  at  the 
port  to  which  he  had  sent  them,  would  be  valuable 
elsewhere  ;  that  the  vessels  which  would  fail  in  secur- 
ing the  cargoes  he  had  ordered  could  secure  others ; 
that  the  very  revolutions  and  wars  which  troubled  him 
would  require  in  some  instances  large  government 
purchases,  perhaps  large  contracts  for  freight,  possibly 
even  for  passage,  —  his  vessels  might  be  used  for  trans^ 


THE    SOUTH    AMERICAN    EDITOR.  97 

ports ;  that  the  very  excitement  of  some  districts 
might  be  made  to  turn  to  our  advantage  ;  that,  w 
short,  there  were  a  thousand  chances  open  to  him 
which  skilful  agents  could  readily  improve.  I  re- 
minded him  that  a  quick  run  in  a  clipper  schoonei 
could  carry  directions  to  half  these  skippers  of  his,  to 
whom,  with  an  infatuation  which  I  could  not  and 
cannot  conceive,  he  had  left  no  discretion,  and  who 
indeed  were  to  be  pardoned  if  they  could  use  none, 
seeing  the  tumult  as  they  did  with  only  half  an  eye. 
I  talked  to  him  for  half  an  hour,  and  went  into  details 
to  show  that  my  plans  were  not  impracticable.  The  old 
gentleman  grew  brighter  and  brighter,  and  Julia,  as  ] 
saw,  whenever  I  stole  a  glance  across  the  room,  felt 
happier  and  happier.  The  poor  girl  had  had  a  hard 
time  since  he  had  first  heard  this  news  whispered  the 
evening  before. 

His  difficulties  were  not  over,  however  ;  for  p*hen  I 
talked  to  him  of  the  necessity  of  sending  out  one  or 
two  skilful  agents  immediately  to  take  the  personal 
superintendence  of  his  complicated  affairs,  the  old  man 
sighed,  and  said  he  had  no  skilful  agents  to  send. 

With  his  customary  suspicion,  he  had  no  partners, 
and  had  never  intrusted  his  clerks  with  any  general 
insight  into  his  business.  Besides,  he  considered  them 
all,  like  his  captains,  blunder-headed  to  the  last  degree. 
I  believe  it  was  an  idea  of  Julia's,  communicated  tc 
me  in  an  eager,  entreating  glance,  which  induced  me  to 
propose  myself  as    one    of  these  confidential  agents, 


98  THE   SOUTH  AMERICAN   EDITOR. 

and  to  be  responsible  for  the  other.  I  thought,  as  I 
spoke,  of  Singleton,  to  whom  I  knew  I  could  explain 
my  plans  in  full,  and  whose  mercantile  experience 
would  make  him  a  valuable  coadjutor.  The  old  gen- 
tleman accepted  my  offer  eagerly.  I  told  him  that 
twenty-four  hours  were  all  I  wanted  to  prepare  my- 
self. He  immediately  took  measures  for  the  charter  of 
two  little  clipper  schooners  which  lay  in  port  then  ; 
and  before  two  days  were  past,  Singleton  and  I  were 
on  our  voyage  to  South  America.  Imagine,  if  you 
can,  how  these  two  days  were  spent.  Then,  as  now, 
I  could  prepare  for  any  journey  in  twenty  minutes,  and 
of  course  I  had  no  little  time  at  my  disposal  for  last 
words  with  Mr.  and  —  Miss  Wentworth.  How  I  won 
on  the  old  gentleman's  heart  in  those  two  days !  How 
he  praised  me  to  Julia,  and  then,  in  as  natural  affec- 
tion, how  he  praised  her  to  me  !  And  how  Julia  and 
I  smiled  through  our  tears,  when,  in  the  last  good-bys, 
he  said  he  was  too  old  to  write  or  read  any  but  busi- 
ness letters,  and  charged  me  and  her  to  keep  up  a 
close  correspondence,  which  on  one  side  should  tell  all 
that  I  saw  and  did,  and  on  the  other  hand  remind  me 
of  all  at  home. 

I  have  neither  time  nor  room  to  give  the  details  ot 
that  South  American  expedition.  I  have  no  right  to. 
There  were  revolutions  accomplished  in  those  days 
without  any  object  in  the  world's  eyes ;  and,  even  in 
mine,   only  serving   to    sell    certain  cargoes    of  long 


THE   SOUTH    AMERICAN    EDITOR.  99 

cloths  and  flour.  The  details  of  those  outbreaks  now 
told  would  make  some  patriotic  presidents  tremble  in 
their  seats:  and  I  have  no  right  to  betrav  confidence 
at  whatever  rate  I  purchased  it.  Usually,  indeed,  my 
feats  and  Singleton's  were  only  obtaining  the  best  in- 
formation and  communicating  the  most  speedy  instruc- 
tions to  Mr.  Wentworth's  vessels,  which  wTere  made  to 
move  from  port  to  port  with  a  rapidity  and  intricacy  of 
movement  which  none  besides  us  two  understood  in 
the  least.  It  was  in  that  expedition  that  I  travelled 
almost  alone  across  the  continent.  I  was,  I  think,  the 
first  white  man  who  ever  passed  through  the  mountain 
path  of  Xamaulipas,  now  so  famous  in  all  the  Chilian 
picturesque  annuals.  I  was  carrying  directions  for 
some  vessels  which  had  gone  round  the  Cape ;  and 
what  a  time  Burrows  and  Wheatland  and  I  had  a 
week  after,  when  we  rode  into  the  public  square  of 
Valparaiso  shouting,  "  Muera  la  Constitucion,  —  Viva 
Libertad ! "  by  our  own  unassisted  lungs  actually 
raising  a  rebellion,  and,  which  was  of  more  impor- 
tance, a  prohibition  on  foreign  flour,  while  Bahamarra 
and  his  army  were  within  a  hundred  miles  of  us. 
How  those  vessels  came  up  the  harbor,  and  how  we 
unloaded  them,  knowing  that  at  best  our  revolution 
could  only  last  five  days  !  But  as  I  said,  I  must  be 
careful,  or  I  shall  be  telling  other  people's  secrets. 

The  result  of  that  expedition  was  that  those  thirteen 
vessels  all  made  good  outward  voyages,  and  all  but 
one  or  two  eventually  made  profitable  Hme  voyages. 


100  THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN  EDITOR. 

When  I  returned  home,  the  old  gentleman  received 
me  with  open  arms.  I  had  rescued,  as  he  said,  a  large 
share  of  that  fortune  which  he  valued  so  highly.  To 
say  the  truth,  I  felt  and  feel  that  he  had  planned 
his  voyages  so  blindly,  that,  without  some  wiser  head 
than  his,  they  would  never  have  resulted  in  anything. 
They  were  his  last,  as  they  were  almost  his  first,  South 
American  ventures.  He  returned  to  his  old  course  of 
more  methodical  trading  for  the  few  remaining  years 
of  his  life.  They  were,  thank  Heaven,  the  only  taste  of 
mercantile  business  which  I  ever  had.  Living  as  I 
did,  in  the  very  sunshine  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  favor, 
I  went  through  the  amusing  farce  of  paying  my  ad- 
dresses to  Julia  in  approved  form,  and  in  due  time  re- 
ceived the  old  gentleman's  cordial  assent  to  our  union, 
and  his  blessing  upon  it.  In  six  months  after  my  re- 
turn, we  were  married ;  the  old  man  as  happy  as  a 
king.  He  would  have  preferred  a  little  that  the  cere- 
mony should  have  been  performed  by  Mr.  B ,  his 

friend  and  pastor,  but  readily  assented  to  my  wishes 
to  call  upon  a  dear  and  early  friend  of  my  own. 

Harry  Barry  came  from  Topsham  and  performed 

the  ceremony,  "assisted  by  Rev.  Mr.  B," 

9  H 

Asous  Cottage,  April  1,  1842. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO 

FACE. 


A  THUMB-NAIL   SKETCH. 


[This  essay  was  published  in  Sartain's  Magazine,  in  1852, 
as  "  A  Thumb-nail  Sketch,"  having  received  one  of  ten  premi- 
ums which  Mr.  Sartain  offered  to  encourage  young  writers.  It 
had  been  written  a  few  years  earlier,  some  time  before  the  studies 
of  St.  Paul's  life  by  Conybeare  and  Howson,  now  so  well  known, 
were  made  public.  The  chronology  of  my  essay  does  not  precise- 
ly agree  with  that  of  these  distinguished  scholars.  But  I  make 
no  attempt  now  either  to  recast  the  essay  or  to  discuss  the  deli- 
cate and  complicated  questions  which  belong  to  the  chronology 
of  Paul's  life  or  to  that  of  Nero ;  for  there  is  no  question  with 
regard  to  the  leading  facts.  At  the  end  of  twenty  years  I  may 
again  express  the  wish  that  some  master  competent  to  the  great- 
est themes  might  take  the  trial  of  Paul  as  the  subject  of  a  pic- 
ture.] 


In  a  Roman  audience-chamber,  the  old  civilization 
and  the  new  civilization  brought  out,  at  the  very  birth 
of  the  new,  their  chosen  champions. 

In  that  little  scene,  as  in  one  of  Rembrandt's  thumb- 
nail studies  for  a  great  picture,  the  lights  and  shades 
are  as  distinct  as  they  will  ever  be  in  the  largest  scene 


102    THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  FACE. 

of  history.  The  champions  were  perfect  representa- 
tives of  the  parties.  And  any  man,  with  til**  soul  of 
a  man,  looking  on,  could  have  prophesied  the  issue  of 
the  great  battle  from  the  issue  of  that  contest. 

The  old  civilization  of  the  Roman  Empire,  just  at 
that  time,  had  reached  a  point  which,  in  all  those 
outward  forms  which  strike  the  eye,  would  regard 
our  times  as  mean  indeed.  It  had  palaces  of  marble, 
where  even  modern  kings  would  build  of  brick  with 
a  marble  front  to  catch  the  eye ;  it  counted  its  armies 
by  thousands,  where  we  count  ours  by  hundreds  ;  it 
surmounted  long  colonnades  with  its  exquisite  statues, 
for  which  modern  labor  digs  deep  in  ruined  cities,  be- 
cause it  cannot  equal  them  from  its  own  genius ;  it 
had  roads,  which  are  almost  eternal,  and  which,  for 
their  purposes,  show  a  luxury  of  wealth  and  labor 
that  our  boasted  locomotion  cannot  rival.  These  are 
its  works  of  a  larger  scale.  And  if  you  enter  the 
palaces,  you  find  pictures  of  matchless  worth,  rich 
dresses  which  modern  looms  cannot  rival,  and  sump- 
tuous furniture  at  which  modern  times  can  only  won- 
der. The  outside  of  the  ancient  civilization  is  unequalled 
by  the  outside  of  ours,  and  for  centuries  will  be  un- 
equalled by  it.  We  have  not  surpassed  it  there.  And 
we  see  how  it  attained  this  distinction,  such  as  it  was. 
It  came  by  the  constant  concentration  of  power. 
Power  in  few  hands  is  the  secret  of  its  display  and 
glory.  And  thus  that  form  of  civilization  attained  ita 
very  climax  in  the  moment  of  the  greatest  unity  of 


\ 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  FACE.    103 

the  Roman  Empire.  When  the  Empire  nestled  into 
rest,  after  the  convulsions  in  which  it  was  born  ;  when 
a  generation  had  passed  away  of  those  who  had  been 
Roman  citizens ;  when  a  generation  arose,  which,  ex- 
cepting one  man,  the  emperor,  was  a  nation  of  Roman 
subjects,  —  then  the  Empire  was  at  its  height  of  power, 
its  centralization  was  complete,  the  system  of  its  civi- 
lization was  at  the  zenith  of  its  success. 

At  that  moment  it  was  that  there  dawned  at  Rome 
the  first  gray  morning-light  of  the  new  civilization. 

At  that  moment  it  was  that  that  short  scene,  in  that 
one  chamber,  contrasted  the  two  as  clearly  as  they  can 
be  contrasted  even  in  long  centuries. 

There  is  one  man,  the  emperor,  who  is  a  precise 
type,  an  exact  representative,  of  the  old.  That  man  ia 
brought  face  to  face  with  another  who  is  a  precise 
type,  an  exact  representative,  of  the  new. 

Only  look  at  them  as  they  stand  there  !  The  man 
who  best  illustrates  the  old  civilization  owes  to  it  the 
most  careful  nurture.  From  his  childhood  he  has 
been  its  petted  darling.  Its  principal  is  concentration 
under  one  head.  He  is  that  head.  When  he  is  a  child, 
men  know  he  will  be  emperor  of  the  world.  The 
wise  men  of  the  world  teach  him  ;  the  poets  of  the 
world  flatter  him ;  the  princes  of  the  world  bow  to 
him.  He  is  trained  in  all  elegant  accomplishments ; 
he  is  led  forward  through  a  graceful,  luxurious  society. 
His  bearing  is  that  of  an  emperor ;  his  face  is  the  face 
of  fine  physical  beauty.      Imagine  for  yourself  tha 


104        THE   OLD    AND   THE   NEW,   FACE    TO   FACE. 

sensual  countenance  of  a  young  Bacchus,  beautiful  as 
Milton's  devils  ;  imagine  him  clad  in  splendor  before 
which  even  English  luxury  is  mean ;  arrayed  in 
jewels,  to  which  even  Eastern  pomp  is  tinsel ;  im- 
agine an  expression  of  tired  hate,  of  low,  brutal  lust, 
hanging  on  those  exquisite  licentious  features,  and  you 
have  before  you  the  type  of  Roman  civilization.  It  is 
the  boy  just  budding  into  manhood,  whom  later  times 
will  name  as  the  lowest  embodiment  of  meanness  and 
cruelty !     You  are  looking  upon  Nero  ! 

Not  only  is  this  man  an  exact  type  of  the  ancient  civ- 
ilization, its  central  power,  its  outside  beauty,  but  the 
precise  time  of  this  sketch  of  ours  is  the  exact  climax 
of  the  moral  results  of  the  ancient  civilization.  We 
are  to  look  at  Nero  just  when  he  has  returned  to 
Rome  from  a  Southern  journey.*  That  journey  had 
one  object,  which  succeeded.  To  his  after-life  it  gives 
one  memory,  which  never  dies.  He  has  travelled  to 
his  beautiful  country  palace,  that  he  might  kill  his 
mother  ! 

We  can  picture  to  ourselves  Agrippina,  by  knowing 
that  she  was  Nero's  mother,  and  our  picture  will  not 
fail  in  one  feature.  She  has  all  the  beauty  of  sense, 
all  the  attraction  of  passion.  Indeed,  she  is  the  Em- 
press of  Rome,  because  she  is  queen  of  beauty  — 
and  of  lust.  She  is  most  beautiful  among  the  beauti- 
ful of  Rome  ;  but  what  is  that  beauty  of  feature  in  a 
state  of  whose  matrons  not  one  is  virtuous,  of  whose 

*  Anno  Christi,  60. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  FACE  TO  FACE.    10^ 


daughters  not  one  is  chaste  ?  It  is  the  beauty  of  sense 
alone,  fit  adornment  of  that  external  grandeur,  of  that 
old  society. 

[n  the  infancy  of  her  son,  this  beautiful  Aprippina 
consulted  a  troop  of  fortune-tellers  as  to  his  fate  ;  and 
they  told  her  that  he  would  live  to  be  Emperor  of 
Rome,  and  to  kill  his  mother.  With  all  the  ecstasy 
of  a  mother's  pride  fused  so  strangely  with  all  the  ex- 
cess of  an  ambitious  woman's  love  of  power,  she  cried 
in  answer,  "  He  may  kill  me,  if  only  he  rules 
Rome !  "  * 

She  spoke  her  own  fate  in  these  words. 

Here  is  the  account  of  it  by  Tacitus.  Nero  had 
made  all  the  preparations ;  had  arranged  a  barge,  that  of 
a  sudden  its  deck  might  fall  heavily  upon  those  in  the 
cabin,  and  crush  them  in  an  instant.  He  meant  thus 
to  give  to  the  murder  which  he  planned  the  aspect  of  an 
accident.  To  this  fatal  vessel  he  led  Agrippina.  He 
talked  with  her  affectionately  and  gravely  on  the  way ; 
"  and  when  they  parted  at  the  lakeside,  with  his  old 
boyish  familiarity  he  pressed  her  closely  to  his  heart, 
either  to  conceal  his  purpose,  or  because  the  last  sight 
of  a  mother,  on  the  eve  of  death,  touched  even  his 
cruel  nature,  and  then  bade  her  farewell." 

Just  at  the  point  upon  the  lake  where  he  had 
directed,  as  the  Empress  sat  in  her  cabin  talking  with 
her  attendants,  the  treacherous  deck  was  let  fall  upon 
them  all.     But  the  plot  failed.     She  saw  dead  at  hei 

*  Tacit.  Arnial.,  xiv.  9 
5* 


106        THE   OLD   AND   THE   NEW,   FACE   TO   FACE. 

feet  one  of  her  favorites,  crushed  hj  the  sudden  blow. 
But  she  had  escaped  it.  She  saw  that  death  awaited 
them  all  upon  the  vessel.  The  men  around  sprang  for- 
ward, ready  to  do  their  master's  bidding  in  a  less  clumsy 
and  more  certain  way.  But  the  Empress,  with  one  of  her 
attendants,  sprang  from  the  treacherous  vessel  into  the 
less  treacherous  waves.  And  there,  this  faithful  friend 
of  hers,  with  a  woman's  wit  and  a  woman's  devotion, 
drew  on  her  own  head  the  blows  and  stabs  of  the  mur- 
derers above,  by  crying,  as  if  in  drowning,  "  Save  me, 
I  am  Nero's  mother  !  "  Utterino;  those  words  of  self- 
devotion,  she  was  killed  by  the  murderers  above,  while 
the  Empress,  in  safer  silence,  buoyed  up  by  fragments 
of  the  wreck,  floated  to  the  shore. 

Nero  had  failed  thus  in  secret  crime,  and  yet  he 
knew  that  he  could  not  stop  here.  And  the  next  day 
after  his  mother's  deliverance,  he  sent  a  soldier  to  her 
palace,  with  a  guard  ;  and  there,  where  she  was  de- 
serted even  by  her  last  attendant,  without  pretence 
of  secrecy,  they  put  to  death  the  daughter  and  the 
mother  of  a  Csesar.  And  Nero  only  waits  to  look 
with  a  laugh  upon  the  beauty  of  the  corpse,  before  he 
returns  to  resume  his  government  at  Rome. 

That  moment  was  the  culminating;  moment  of  the 
ancient  civilization.  It  is  complete  in  its  centralizing 
power ;  it  is  complete  in  its  external  beauty ;  it  is 
complete  in  its  crime.  Beautiful  as  Eden  to  the  eye, 
with  luxury,  with  comfort,  with  easy  indolence  to  all ; 
but  dust  and  ashes   beneath  the  surface !     It  is  cor- 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  FACE.    107 

rupted  at  the  head !      It  is  corrupted  at  the  heart  I 
There  is  nothing  firm  ! 

This  is  the  moment  which  I  take  for  our  little  pic- 
ture. At  this  very  moment  there  is  announced  the 
first  germ  of  the  new  civilization.  In  the  very  midst 
of  this  falsehood,  there  sounds  one  voice  of  truth  ;  in 
the  very  arms  of  this  giant,  there  plays  the  baby  boy 
who  is  to  cleave  him  to  the  ground.  This  Nero  slowly 
returns  to  the  city.  He  meets  the  congratulations  of 
a  senate,  which  thank  him  and  the  gods  that  he  has 
murdered  his  own  mother.  With  the  agony  of  an  undy- 
ing conscience  torturing  him,  he  strives  to  avert  care  by 
amusement.  He  hopes  to  turn  the  mob  from  despising 
him  by  the  grandeur  of  their  public  entertainments. 
He  enlarges  for  them  the  circus.  He  calls  unheard-of 
beasts  to  be  baited  and  killed  for  their  enjoyment. 
The  finest  actors  rant,  the  sweetest  musicians  sing, 
that  Nero  may  forget  his  mother,  and  that  his  people 
may  forget  him. 

At  that  period,  the  statesmen  who  direct  the  ma- 
chinery of  affairs  inform  him  that  his  personal  atten- 
tion is  required  one  morning  for  a  state  trial,  to  be 
argued  before  the  Emperor  in  person.  Must  the  Em- 
peror be  there  ?  May  he  not  waste  the  hours  in  the 
blandishmenis  of  lying  courtiers,  or  the  honeyed  false- 
hoods of  a  mistress  ?  If  he  chooses  thus  to  postpone 
the  audience,  be  it  so;  Seneca,  Burrhus,  and  his  other 
counsellors  will  obey.  But  the  time  will  come  when 
the  worn-out  boy  will  be  pleased  some  morning  with 


108    THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  FACE  TO  FACE 

the  almost  forgotten  majesty  of  state.  The  time  conies 
one  day.  Worn  out  by  the  dissipation  of  the  week, 
fretted  by  some  blunder  of  his  flatterers,  he  sends  for 
his  wiser  counsellers,  and  bids  them  lead  him  to  the 
audience-chamber,  where  he  will  attend  to  these  cases 
which  need  an  Emperor's  decision.  It  is  at  that  mo- 
ment that  we  are  to  look  upon  him. 

He  sits  there,  upon  that  unequalled  throne,  his  face 
sickly  pale  with  boyish  debauchery ;  his  young  fore 
head  worn  with  the  premature  sensual  wrinkles  of 
lust ;  and  his  eyes  bloodshot  with  last  night's  intern 
perance.  He  sits  there,  the  Emperor-boy,  vainly  trying 
to  excite  himself,  and  forget  her,  in  the  blazonry  of 
that  pomp,  and  bids  them  call  in  the  prisoner. 

A  soldier  enters,  at  whose  side  the  prisoner  has 
been  chained  for  years.  This  soldier  is  a  tried  veteran 
of  the  Praetorian  cohorts.  He  was  selected,  that 
from  him  this  criminal  could  not  escape ;  and  for 
that  purpose  they  have  been  inseparably  bound.  But, 
as  he  leads  that  other  through  the  hall,  he  looks  at 
him  with  a  regard  and  earnestness  which  say  he  is  no 
criminal  to  him.  Long  since,  the  criminal  has  been 
the  guardian  of  his  keeper.  Long  since,  the  keeper 
has  cared  for  the  prisoner  with  all  the  ardor  of  a  new- 
found son's  affection. 

They  lead  that  gray-haired  captive  forward,  and 
with  his  eagle  eye  he  glances  keenly  round  the  hall. 
That  flashing  eye  has  ere  now  bade  monarchs  quail ; 
and  those  thin   IBs   have  uttered  words  which  shall 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  FACE.    109 

make  the  world  ring  till  the  last  moment  of  the  world 
shall  come.      The  stately  Eastern  captive  moves  un- 
awed  through  the   assembly,  till  he  makes  a  subject's 
salutation  to  the  Emperor-judge  who  is  to  hear  him. 
And  when,  then,  the  gray-haired  sage  kneels  before 
the    sensual   boy,  you    see    the    prophet    of  the  new 
civilization  kneel  before  the  monarch  of  the  old !     You 
see  Paul  make  a  subject's  formal  reverence  to  Nero !  * 
Let  me  do  justice  to  the  court  which  is  to  try  him. 
In  that  judgment-hall  there  are  not  only  the  pomp  of 
Rome,  and  its  crime ;  we  have  also  the  best  of  its  wisdom. 
By  the  dissolute  boy,  Nero,  there  stands    the   prime 
minister  Seneca,  the  chief  of  the  philosophers  of  his 
time  ;  "  Seneca  the  saint,"  cry  the  Christians  of  the 
next  century.      We  will  own  him  to  be  Seneca  the 
wise,  Seneca  almost  the  good.     To  this  sage  had  been 
0iven  the  education  of  the  monster  who  was  to  rule 
the  world.     This  sage  had  introduced  him  into  power, 
had  restrained  his  madness  when  he  could,  and  with 
his  colleague  had  conducted  the  general  administration 
of  the  Empire  with  the  greatest  honor,  while   the  boy 
was  wearing  out  his  life  in  debauchery  in  the  palace. 
Seneca  dared  say  more  to  Nero,  to  venture  more  with 
him,  than  did  any  other  man.     For  the  young  tiger 
was  afraid  of  his  old  master  long  after  he  had  tasted 
blood.     Yet  Seneca's  system  was  a  cowardly  system. 
It  was  the  best  of  Roman  morality  and  Greek  philoso- 
phy, and  still  it  was  mean.     His  daring  was  the  brav 

•  Anno  Christi .  CO.     See  Neander,  P.  &  T.,  B.  iii.  ch  x 


110        THE   OLD   AND   THE  NEW,   FACE   TO   FACE. 

est  of  the  men  of  the  old  civilization.  He  is  the  typ« 
of  their  excellences,  as  is  Nero  the  model  of  their 
power  and  their  adornments.  And  yet  all  that  Seneca's 
daring  could  venture  was  to  seduce  the  baby-tyrant 
into  the  least  injurious  of  tyrannies.  From  the  plun- 
der of  a  province  he  would  divert  him  by  the  carnage 
of  the  circus.  From  the  murder  of  a  senator  he  could 
lure  him  by  some  new  lust  at  home.  From  the  ruin 
of  the  Empire,  he  could  seduce  him  by  diverting  him 
with  the  ruin  of  a  noble  family.  And  Seneca  did 
this  with  the  best  of  motives.  He  said  he  used  all 
the  power  in  his  hands,  and  he  thought  he  did.  He 
was  one  of  those  men  of  whom  all  times  have  their 
share.  The  bravest  of  his  time,  he  satisfied  himself 
with  alluring  the  beardless  Emperor  by  petty  crime 
from  public  wrong;  he  could  natter  him  to  the  ex- 
pedient.    He  dared  not  order  him  to  the  right. 

But  Seneca  knew  what  was  right.  Seneca  also  had 
a  well-trained  conscience,  which  told  him  of  right  and 
of  wrong.  Seneca's  brother,  Gallio,  had  saved  Paul's 
life  when  a  Jewish  mob  would  have  dragged  him  to 
pieces  in  Corinth ;  and  the  legend  is  that  Seneca  and 
Paul  had  corresponded  with  each  other  before  they 
stood  together  in  Nero's  presence,  the  one  as  counsel- 
lor, the  other  as  the   criminal.*      When   Paul  arose 

*  This  correspondence,  as  preserved  in  the  collections  of  fragments, 
has  too  much  the  aspect  of  a  school-boy  exercise  to  claim  much  credit, 
though  high  authorities  support  it  as  genuine.  But  the  probability 
that  there  was  such  a  correspondence,  though  nov!  lost,  is  very  strong. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  PACE.    Ill 

from  that  formal  salutation,  -when  the  apostle  of  the 
new  civilization  spoke  to  the  tottering  monarch  of  the 
old,  if  there  had  been  one  man  in  that  assemblage, 
could  he  have  failed  to  see  that  that  was  a  turning- 
point  in  the  world's  history  ?  Before  him  in  that  little 
hall,  in  that  little  hour,  was  passing  the  scene  which 
for  centuries  would  be  acted  out  upon  the  larger  stage. 
Faith  on  the  one  side,  before  expediency  and 
cruelty  on  the  other  !  Paul  before  Seneca  and  Nero ! 
He  was  ready  to  address  Nero,  with  the  eloquence 
and  vehemence  which  for  years  had  been  demanding 
utterance. 

He  stood  at  length  before  the  baby  Csesar,  to  whose 
tribunal  he  had  appealed  from  the  provincial  court  of 
a  doubting  Festos  and  a  trembling  Agrippa. 

And  who  shall  ask  what  words  the  vigorous  Chris- 
tian spoke  to  the  dastard  boy  !  Who  that  knows  the 
eloquence  which  rung  out  on  the  ears  of  astonished 
Stoics  at  Athens,  which  commanded  the  incense  and 
the  hecatombs  of  wandering  peasants  in  Asia,  which 
stilled  the  gabbling  clamor  of  a  wild  mob  at  Jerusa- 
lem, —  who  will  doubt  the  tone  in  which  Paul  spoke 
to  Nero  !  The  boy  quailed  for  the  moment  before  the 
man  !  The  gilded  dotard  shrunk  back  from  the  home 
truths  of  the  new,  young,  vigorous  faith:  the  ruler 
of  a  hundred  legions  was  nothing  before  the  God- 
commissioned  prisoner. 

No  ;  though  at  this  audience  all  men  forsook  Paul, 
as  he  tells  us ;  though  not  one  of  the  timid  converts 


112    THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  FACE. 

were  there,  but  the  soldier  chained  at  his  side,  —  still  he 
triumphed  over  Nero  and  Nero's  minister. 

From  that  audience-hall  those  three  men  retire. 
The  boy,  grown  old  in  lust,  goes  thence  to  be  an  hour 
alone,  to  ponder  for  an  hour  on  this  God,  this  resur- 
rection, and  this  truth,  of  which  the  Jew,  in  such  un- 
courtly  phrase,  has  harangued  him.  To  be  alone,  un- 
til the  spectre  of  a  dying  mother  rises  again  to  haunt 
him,  to  persecute  him  and  drive  him  forth  to  his  fol- 
lowers and  feasters,  where  he  will  try  to  forget  Paul 
and  the  Saviour  and  God,  where  he  would  be  glad  to 
banish  them  forever.  He  does  not  banish  them  for- 
ever !  Henceforward,  whenever  that  spectre  of  a 
mother  comes  before  him,  it  must  re-echo  the  words  of 
God  and  eternity  which  Paul  has  spoken.  Whenever 
the  chained  and  bleeding  captive  of  the  arena  bends 
suppliant  before  him,  there  must  return  the  memory 
of  the  only  captive  who  was  never  suppliant  before 
him,  and  his  words  of  sturdy  power ! 

And  Seneca  ?  Seneca  goes  home  with  the  morti- 
fied feelings  of  a  great  man  who  has  detected  his  own 
meanness. 

We  all  know  the  feeling  ;  for  all  God's  children 
might  be  great,  and  it  is  with  miserable  mortification 
that  we  detect  ourselves  in  one  or  another  pettiness. 
Seneca  goes  home  to  say:  "  This  wild  Easterner  has 
rebuked  the  Emperor  as  I  have  so  often  wanted  to  re- 
buke him.  He  stood  there,  as  I  have  wanted  to  stand, 
a  man  before  a  brute. 


TBE   OLD   AND   THE   NEW,  I?  ACE    TO    PACE.         113 

tr  He  said  what  I  have  thought,  and  have  been  afraid 
to  say.  Downright,  straightforward,  he  told  the  Em- 
peror truths  as  to  Rome,  as  to  man,  and  as  to  his  vices, 
which  I  have  longed  to  tell  him.  He  has  done  what  I 
am  afraid  to  do.  He  has  dared  this,  which  I  have 
dallied  with,  and  left  undone.  What  is  the  mystery  of 
his  power?" 

Seneca  did  not  know.  Nero  did  not  know.  The 
*4  Eastern  mystery  "  was  in  presence  before  them,  and 
they  knew  it  not ! 

What  was  the  mystery  of  Paul's  power  ? 

Paul  leaves  them  with  the  triumph  of  a  man  who 
has  accomplished  the  hope  of  long  years.  Those 
solemn  words  of  his,  "  After  that,  I  must  also  see 
Rome,"  expressed  the  longing  of  years,  whose  object 
now,  in  part,  at  least,  is  gratified.  He  must  see 
Rome ! 

It  is  God's  mission  to  him  that  he  see  Rome  and  its 
Emperor.  Paul  has  seen  with  the  spirit's  eye  what 
we  have  seen  since  in  history,  —  that  he  is  to  be  the 
living  link  by  which  the  electric  fire  of  life  should 
pass  first  from  religious  Asia  to  quicken  this  dead, 
brutish  Europe.  He  knows  that  he  is  God's  messen- 
ger to  bear  this  mystery  of  life  eternal  from  the  one 
land  to  the  other,  and  to  unfold  it  there.  And  to-day 
has  made  real,  in  fact,  this  his  inward  confidence. 
To-day  has  put  the  seal  of  fact  on  that  vision  of  his, 
years  since,  when  he  first  left  his  Asiatic  home.  A 
prisoner  in  chains,  still  he  has  to-day  seen  the  accom< 


114  THE   OLD   AND   THE  NEW,  FACE   TO   FACE. 

plisliment  of  the  vows,  hopes,  and  resolutions  of  thai 
field  of  Troy,  most  truly  famous  from  the  night  he 
spent  there.  There  was  another  of  these  hours  when 
God  brings  into  one  spot  the  acts  which  shall  be  the 
argument  of  centuries  of  history.  Paul  had  come 
down  there  in  his  long  Asiatic  journeys,  —  Eastern  in 
his  lineage,  Eastern  in  his  temperament,  Eastern  in 
his  outward  life,  and  Eastern  in  his  faith,  —  to  that 
narrow  Hellespont,  which  for  long  ages  has  separated 
East  from  West,  tore  madly  up  the  chains  which 
would  unite  them,  overwhelmed  even  love  when  it 
sought  to  intermarry  them,  and  left  their  cliffs  frown- 
ing eternal  hate  from  shore  to  shore.  Paul  stood 
upon  the  Asian  shore  and  looked  across  upon  the 
Western.  There  were  Macedonia  and  the  hills  of 
Greece,  here  Troas  and  the  ruins  of  Ilium.  The 
names  speak  war.  The  blue  Hellespont  has  no  voice 
but  separation,  except  to  Paul.  But  to  Paul,  sleep- 
ing, it  might  be,  on  the  tomb  of  Achilles,  that  night 
the  "  man  of  Macedonia  "  appears,  and  bids  him  come 
over  to  avenge  Asia,  to  pay  back  the  debt  of  Troy. 

"  Come  over  and  help  us."  Give  us  life,  for  we 
gave  you  death.  Give  us  help  for  we  gave  you  ruin. 
Paul  was  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly  vision.  The 
Christian  Alexander,  he  crosses  to  Macedon  with 
the  words  of  peace  instead  of  war,  —  the  Christian 
shepherd  of  the  people,  he  carries  to  Greece,  from 
Troy,  the  tidings  of  salvation  instead  of  carnage,  of 
charity  instead  of  license.      And  he  knows  that  tc 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW,  FACE  TO  PACE.    116 

Eniope  it  is  the  beginning  of  her  new  civilization,  it  is 
the  dawn  of  her  new  warfare,  of  her  new  poetry,  of 
her  reign  of  heroes  who  are  immortal. 

That  faith  of  his,  now  years  old,  has  this  day  re- 
ceived its  crowning  victory.  This  day,  when  he  has 
faced  Nero  and  Seneca  together,  may  well  stand  in 
his  rnind  as  undoing  centuries  of  bloodshed  and  of 
license. 

And  in  this  effort,  and  in  that  spiritual  strength 
which  had  nerved  him  in  planning  it  and  carrying  it 
through,  was  the  "  Asian  mystery."  Ask  what  was 
the  secret  of  Paul's  power  as  he  bearded  the  baby 
Emperor,  and  abashed  the  baby  Philosopher  ?  What 
did  he  give  the  praise  to,  as  he  left  that  scene  ?  What 
was  the  principle  in  action  there,  but  faith  in  the  new 
life,  faith  in  the  God  who  gave  it ! 

We  do  not  wonder,  as  Seneca  wondered,  that  such 
a  man  as  Paul  dared  say  anything  to  such  a  boy  as 
Nero !  The  absolute  courage  of  the  new  faith  was 
the  motive-power  which  forced  it  upon  the  world. 
Here  were  the  sternest  of  morals  driven  forward  with 
the  most  ultra  bravery. 

Perfect  faith  gave  perfect  courage  to  the  first  wit- 
nesses. And  there  was  the  "  mystery  "  of  their  vic- 
tories. 

And  so,  in  this  case,  when  after  a  while  Seneca 
again  reminded  Nero  of  his  captive,  poor  Nero  did  not 
dare  but  meet  him  again.  Yet,  when  he  met  him 
again  in   that  same  judgment-hall,   he  did   not    dare 


116         THE   OLD   AND   THE  NEW,  FACE   10   FACE. 

hear  him  long  ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  there  were 
but  few  words  before,  with  such  affectation  of  dig- 
nity as  he  could  summon,  he  bade  them  set  the  pris- 
oner free. 

Paul  free  !      The  old  had  faced  the  new.      Each 
had  named  its  champion.     And  the  new  conquers  I 


THE    DOT    AND    LINE    ALPHABET. 


[This  sketch  was  originally  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  October,  1858,  just  at  the  time  that  the  first  Atlantic  Cable, 
whose  first  prattle  had  been  welcomed  by  the  acclamations  of 
a  continent,  gasped  its  last  under  the  manipulations  of  De 
Sauty.  It  has  since  been  copied  by  Mr.  Prescott  in  his  valuable 
hand-book  of  the  electric  telegraph. 

The  war,  which  has  taught  us  all  so  much,  has  given  a  brilliant 
illustration  of  the  dot  and  line  alphabet,  wholly  apart  from  the 
electric  use  of  it,  which  will  undoubtedly  be  often  repeated.  In 
the  movements  of  our  troops  under  General  Foster  in  North 
Carolina,  Dr.  J.  B.  Upham  of  Boston,  the  distinguished  medical 
director  in  that  department,  equally  distinguished  for  the  success 
with  which  he  has  led  forward  the  musical  education  of  New  Eng- 
land, trained  a  corps  of  buglers  to  converse  with  each  other  by 
long  and  short  bugle-notes,  and  thus  to  carry  information  with 
literal  accuracy  from  point  to  point  at  any  distance  within  which 
the  tones  of  a  bugle  could  be  heard.  It  will  readily  be  seen  that 
there  are  many  occasions  in  military  affairs  when  such  means  of 
conversation  might  prove  of  inestimable  value.  Mr.  Tuttle,  the 
astronomer,  on  duty  in  the  same  campaign,  made  a  similar  ar- 
rangement witk  long  and  short  flashes  of  light.] 


Jost  in  the  triumph  week  of  that  Great  Telegraph 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  J 


118  THE  DOT   AND   LINE  ALPHABET. 

read  in  the  September  number  of  that  journal  the  rev- 
elations of  an  observer  who  was  surprised  to  find  that 
he  had  the  power  of  reading,  as  they  run,  the  reve- 
lations of  the  wire.  I  had  the  hope  that  he  was  about 
to  explain  to  the  public  the  more  general  use  of  this 
instrument,  —  which,  with  a  stupid  fatuity,  the  public 
has  as  yet  failed  to  grasp.  Because  its  signals  have 
been  first  applied  by  means  of  electro-magnetism,  and 
afterwards  by  means  of  the  chemical  power  of  elec- 
tricity, the  many-headed  people  refuses  to  avail  it- 
self, as  it  might  do  very  easily,  of  the  same  signals  for 
the  simpler  transmission  of  intelligence,  whatever  the 
power  employed. 

The  great  invention  of  Mr.  Morse  is  his  register  and 
alphabet.  He  himself  eagerly  disclaims  any  preten- 
sion to  the  original  conception  of  the  use  of  electricity 
as  an  errand-boy.  Hundreds  of  people  had  thought 
of  that  and  suggested  [^  .  Dut  Morse  was  the  first  to 
give  the  errand-boy  such  a  written  message,  that  he 
could  not  lose  it  on  the  way,  nor  mistake  it  when  he 
arrived.  The  public,  eager  to  thank  Morse,  as  he  de- 
serves, thanks  him  for  something  he  did  not  invent. 
For  this  he  probably  cares  very  little  ;  nor  do  I  care 
more.  But  the  public  does  not  thank  him  for  what 
he  did  originate,  —  this  invaluable  and  simple  alpha- 
bet. Now,  as  I  use  it  myself  in  every  detail  of  life, 
and  see  every  hour  how  the  public  might  use  it,  if  it 
chose,  1  am  really  sorry  for  this  negligence,  —  both  on 
the  score  of  his  fame,  and  of  general  convenience. 


THE   DOT    AND   LINE   ALPHABET.  119 

Please  to  understand,  then,  ignorant  Reader,  that 
this  curious  alphabet  reduces  all  the  complex  machin- 
ery of  Cadmus  and  the  rest  of  the  writing-masters  to 
characters  as  simple  as  can  be  made  by  a  dot,  a  space, 
and  a  line,  variously  combined.  Thus,  the  marks  .  — 
designate  the  letter  A.  The  marks  —  ...  designate 
the  letter  B.  All  the  other  letters  are  designated  in 
as  simple  a  manner. 

Now  I  am  stripping  myself  of  one  of  the  private 
comforts  of  my  life,  (but  what  will  one  not  do  for 
mankind?)  when  I  explain  that  this  simple  alphabet 
need  not  be  confined  to  electrical  signals.  Long  and 
short  make  it  all,  —  and  wherever  long  and  short  can 
be  combined,  be  it  in  marks,  sounds,  sneezes,  fainting- 
fits, canes,  or  children,  ideas  can  be  conveyed  by  this 
arrangement  of  the  long  and  short  together.  Only  last 
night  I  was  talking  scandal  with  Mrs.  Wilberforce  at 
a  summer  party  at  the  Hammersmiths.  To  my  amaze- 
ment, my  wife,  who  scarcely  can  play  "  The  Fish- 
er's Hornpipe,"  interrupted  us  by  asking  Mrs.  Wil- 
berforce if  she  could  give  her  the  idea  of  an  air  in 
"The  Butcher  of  Turin."  Mrs.  Wilberforce  had 
never  heard  that  opera,  —  indeed,  had  never  heard 
of  it.  My  angel-wife  was  surprised,  —  stood  thrum- 
ming at  the  piano,  —  wondered  she  could  not  catch 
this  very  odd  bit  of  discordant  accord  at  all,  —  but 
checked  herself  in  her  effort,  as  soon  as  I  observed 
that  her  long  notes  and  short  notes,  in  their  tum-tee, 
tee, — tee-tee,  tee-tum  turn,  meant,  "  He 's  her  brother." 


120  THE   DOT   AND   LINE   ALPHABET. 

The  conversation  on  her  side  turned  from  u  The  Butcher 
of  Turin,"  and  I  had  just  time  on  the  hint  thus  given 
me  by  Mrs.  I.  to  pass  a  grateful  eulogium  on  the  dis- 
tinguished statesman  whom  Mrs.  Wilberforce,  with  all 
a  sister's  care,  had  rocked  in  his  baby-cradle,  —  whom, 
but  for  my  wife's  long  and  short  notes,  I  should  have 
clumsily  abused  among  the  other  statesmen  of  the  day. 

You  will  see,  in  an  instant,  awakening  Reader,  that 
it  is  not  the  business  simply  of  "  operators  "  in  tele- 
graphic dens  to  know  this  Morse  alphabet,  but  your 
business,  and  that  of  every  man  and  woman.  If  our 
school  committees  understood  the  times,  it  would  be 
taught,  even  before  phonography  or  physiology,  at 
school.  I  believe  both  these  sciences  now  precede  the 
old  English  alphabet. 

As  I  write  these  words,  the  bell  of  the  South  Con- 
gregational strikes  dong,  dong,  dong,  —  dong,  dong, 
dong,  dong,  —  dong, — dong.  Nobody  has  unlocked 
the  church-door.  I  know  that,  for  I  am  locked  up  in 
the  vestry.  The  old  tin  sign,  "  In  case  of  fire,  the 
key  will  be  found  at  the  opposite  house,"  has  long 
since  been  taken  down,  and  made  into  the  nose  of  a 
water-pot.  Yet  there  is  no  Goody  Two-Shoes  locked 
in.  No  one  except  me,  and  certainly  I  am  not  ring- 
ing the  bell.  No !  But,  thanks  to  Dr.  Channing's 
Fire  Alarm,*  the  bell  is  informing  the  South  End  thai 

*  The  Fire  Alarm  is  the  invention  of  Dr.  William  F.  Channing: 

"  A  wizard  of  such  dreaded  fame, 
That  wher  in  Salamanca's  cave, 
Him  listed  his  magic  wand  to  wave, 
The  bells  would  ring  in  Notre  Dame  K 


THE    DOT    AND    LINE    ALPHABET.  12l 

there  is  a  fire  in  District  Dong-dong-dong, —  that  is  tc 
say,  District  No.  3.  Before  I  have  explained  to  you 
so  far,  the  "  Eagle  "  engine,  with  a  good  deal  of  noise, 
has  passed  the  house  on  its  way  to  that  fated  district. 
An  immense  improvement  this  on  the  old  system, 
when  the  engines  radiated  from  their  houses  in  every 
possible  direction,  and  the  fire  was  extinguished  by 
the  few  machines  whose  lines  of  quest  happened  tc 
cross  each  other  at  the  particular  place  where  the  child 
had  been  building  cob-houses  out  of  lucifer-matches  in 
a  paper  warehouse.  Yes,  it  is  a  very  great  improve- 
ment. All  those  persons,  like  you  and  me,  who  have 
no  property  in  District  Dong-dong-dong,  can  now  sit 
at  home  at  ease  ;  —  and  little  need  we  think  upon  the 
mud  above  the  knees  of  those  who  have  property  in 
that  district  and  are  running  to  look  after  it.  But  foi 
them  the  improvement  only  brings  misery.  You  arrive 
wet,  hot  or  cold,  or  both,  at  the  large  District  No.  3,  to 
find  that  the  lucifer-matches  were  half  a  mile  away 
from  your  store,  —  and  that  your  own  private  watch- 
man, even,  had  not  been  waked  by  the  working  of  the 
distant  engines.  Wet  property  holder,  as  you  walk 
home,  consider  this.  When  you  are  next  in  the  Com- 
mon Council,  vote  an  appropriation  for  applying 
Morse's  alphabet  of  long  and  short  to  the  bells.  Then 
they  can  be  made  to  sound  intelligibly.  Daring  ding 
ding,  —  ding,  —  ding  daring,  —  daung  daung  daung, 
and  so  on,  will  tell  you  as  you  wake  in  the  night  that  it 
is  Mr.  B.'s  store  which  is  on  fire,  and  not  yours,  or  that 


122  THE   DOT   AND   LINE   ALPHABET. 

it  is  yours  and  not  his.  This  is  not  only  a  convex 
ience  to  you  and  a  relief  to  your  wife  and  family,  who 
will  thus  be  spared  your  excursions  to  unavailable  and 
unsatisfactory  fires,  and  your  somewhat  irritated  return, 
—  it  will  be  a  great  relief  to  the  Fire  Department. 
How  placid  the  operations  of  a  fire  where  none  attend 
except  on  business!  The  various  engines  arrive,  but 
no  throng  of  distant  citizens,  men  and  boys,  fearful  of 
the  destruction  of  their  all.  They  have  all  roused  on 
their  pillows  to  learn  that  it  is  No.  530  Pearl  Street 
which  is  in  flames.  All  but  the  owner  of  No.  530 
Pearl  Street  have  dropped  back  to  sleep.  He  alone 
has  rapidly  repaired  to  the  scene.  That  is  he,  who 
stands  in  the  uncrowded  street  with  the  Chief  Engineer, 
on  the  deck  of  No.  18,  as  she  plays  away.  His  prop- 
erty destroyed,  the  engines  retire,  —  he  mentions  the 
amount  of  his  insurance  to  those  persons  who  repre- 
sent the  daily  press,  they  all  retire  to  their  homes,  — 
and  the  whole  is  finished  as  simply,  almost,  as  was  hia 
private  entry  in  his  day-book  the  afternoon  before.* 

This  is  what  might  be,  if  the  magnetic  alarm  onlv 
struck  long  and  short,  and  we  had  all  learned  Morse's 
alphabet.  Indeed,  there  is  nothing  the  bells  could  not 
tell,  if  you  would  only  give  them  time  enough.  We 
have  only  one    chime,  for   musical   purposes,  in   the 

*  I  am  proud  to  say  that  such  suggestions  have  had  so  much  weight. 
that  in  1868  the  alarm  strikes  the  number  of  the  box  which  first  tele 
graphs  danger,  six-four,  six-four,  &c,  six  being  the  district  number 
and  four  the  box  number  in  that  district. 


THE   DOT   AND   LINE   ALPHABET.  128 

town.  But,  without  attempting  tunes,  only  give  the 
bells  the  Morse  alphabet,  and  every  bell  in  Boston 
might  chant  in  monotone  the  words  of  "  Hail  Colum- 
bia "  at  length,  every  Fourth  of  July.  Indeed,  if  Mr. 
Barnard  should  report  any  day  that  a  discouraged 
'prentice-boy  had  left  town  for  his  country  home,  all 
the  bells  could  instantly  be  set  to  work  to  speak  articu- 
lately, in  language  regarding  which  the  dullest  imagi- 
nation need  not  be  at  loss, 

"  Turn  again,  Higginbottom, 
Lord  Mayor  of  Boston ! " 

1  have  suggested  the  propriety  of  introducing  this 
alphabet  into  the  primary  schools.  I  need  not  say  I 
have  taught  it  to  my  own  children, — and  I  have  been 
gratified  to  see  how  rapidly  it  made  head,  against 
the  more  complex  alphabet,  in  the  grammar  schools. 
Of  course  it  does  ;  —  an  alphabet  of  two  characters 
matched  against  one  of  twenty-six,  —  or  of  forty-odd, 
as  the  very  odd  one  of  the  phonotypists  employ !  On 
the  Franklin-medal  day  I  went  to  the  Johnson-School 
examination.  One  of  the  committee  asked  a  nice 
girl  what  was  the  capital  of  Brazil.  The  child  looked 
tired  and  pale,  and,  for  an  instant,  hesitated.  But,  be- 
fore she  had  time  to  commit  herself,  all  answering  was 
rendered  impossible  by  an  awful  turn  of  whooping- 
cough  which  one  of  my  own  sons  was  seized  with,  — 
who  had  gone  to  the  examination  with  me.  Hawm, 
hem  hem  ;  —  hem  hem  hem  ;  —  hem,  hem  ;  —  hawm, 
hem  hem  ;  —  hem  hem  hem  ;  —  hem,  hem,  —  barked 


124  THE  DOT   AND   LINE  ALPHABET. 

the  poor  child,  who  was  at  the  opposite  extreme  of  the 
Bchool-room.  The  spectators  and  the  committee  looked 
to  see  him  fall  dead  with  a  broken  blood-vessel.  I 
confess  that  I  felt  no  alarm,  after  I  observed  that  some 
of  his  gasps  were  long  and  some  very  staccato  ;  —  nor 
did  pretty  little  Mabel  Warren.  She  recovered  her 
color, —  and,  as  soon  as  silence  was  in  the  least  restored, 
answered,  u  Rio  is  the  capital  of  Brazil,"  —  as  modestly 
and  properly  as  if  she  had  been  taught  it  in  her  cradle. 
They  are  nothing  but  children,  any  of  them,  —  but 
that  afternoon,  after  they  had  done  all  the  singing 
the  city  needed  for  its  annual  entertainment  of  the 
singers,  I  saw  Bob  and  Mabel  start  for  a  long  ex- 
pedition into  West  Roxbury,  —  and  when  he  came 
back,  I  know  it  was  a  long  featherfew,  from  her 
prize  school-bouquet,  that  he  pressed  in  his  Greene's 
"  Analysis,"  with  a  short  frond  of  maiden's  hair. 

I  hope  nobody  will  write  a  letter  to  "  The  Atlantic," 
to  say  that  these  are  very  trifling  uses.  The  commu- 
nication of  useful  information  is  never  trifling.  It  is 
as  important  to  save  a  nice  child  from  mortification  on 
examination-day,  as  it  is  to  tell  Mr.  Fremont  that  he 
is  not  elected  President.  If,  however,  the  reader  is 
distressed,  because  these  illustrations  do  not  seem  to 
his  more  benighted  observation  to  belong  to  the  big 
how-wow  strain  of  human  life,  let  him  consider  the 
arrangement  which  ought  to  have  been  made  years 
since,  for  lee  shores,  railroad  collisions,  and  that  curious 
class  of  maritime  accidents  where  one  steamer  runs 


THE   DOT    AND    LINE    ALPHABET.  121. 


into  mother  under  the  impression  that  she  is  a  light 
house.  Imagine  the  Morse  alphabet  applied  to  a  steam- 
whistle,  which  is  often  heard  five  miles.  It  needs 
only  long  and  short  again.  "  Stop  Comet,"  for  instance, 
when  you  send  it  down  the  railroad  line,  by  the  wire, 
is  expressed  thus:     .  .  .     — , 

Very  good  message,  if  Comet  happens  to  be  at  the 
telegraph  station  when  it  comes  !  But  what  if  Comet, 
has  gone  by  ?  Much  good  will  your  trumpery  mes- 
sage do  then  !  If,  however,  you  have  the  wit  to  sound 
your  long  and  short  on  an  engine-whistle,  thus;  — 
Sere  sere,  sere  ;  screeee  ;  sere  sere  ;  sere  sere  sere  sere 
sere  ;  sere  sere  sere,  —  sere  sere  ;  screeeee  screeeee  ; 
sere  ;  screeeee  ;  —  why,  then  the  whole  neighborhood, 
for  five  miles  around,  will  know  that  Comet  must 
stop,  if  only  they  understand  spoken  language,  — and 
among  others,  the  engineman  of  Comet  will  under- 
stand it ;  and  Comet  will  not  run  into  that  wreck  of 
worlds  which  gives  the  order,  —  with  the  nucleus  of 
hot  iron  and  his  tail  of  five  hundred  tons  of  coal.  — 
So,  of  the  signals  which  fog-bells  can  give,  attached 
to  light-houses.  How  excellent  to  have  them  proclaim 
through  the  darkness,  "  I  am  Wall  "  I  Or  of  siomala 
for  steamship-engineers.  When  our  friends  were  on 
board  the  "  Arabia  "  the  other  day,  and  she  and  the 
"Europa"  pitched  into  each  other, — as  if,  on  that 
happy  week,  all  the  continents  were  to  kiss  and  join 
hands  all  round,  —  how  great  the  relief  to  the  passen- 


126        THE  DOT  AND  LINE  ALPHABET. 

gers  on  each,  if,  through  every  night  of  their  passage, 
collision  had  been  prevented  by  this  simple  expedient ! 
One  boat  would  have  screamed,  "  Europa,  Europa, 
Europa,"  from  night  to  morning,  —  and  the  other, 
*'  Arabia,  Arabia,  Arabia,"  —  and  neither  would  have 
been  mistaken,  as  one  unfortunately  was,  for  a  light- 
house. 

The  long  and  short  of  it  is,  that  whoever  can  mark 
distinctions  of  time  can  use  this  alphabet  of  long-and- 
ehort,  however  he  may  mark  them.  It  is  therefore 
within  the  compass  of  all  intelligent  beings,  except 
those  who  are  no  longer  conscious  of  the  passage  ot 
time,  having  exchanged  its  limitations  for  the  widei 
sweep  of  eternity.  The  illimitable  range  of  this  al 
phabet,  however,  is  not  half  disclosed  when  this  has 
been  said.  Most  articulate  language  addresses  itself 
to  one  sense,  or  at  most  to  two,  sight  and  sound.  I 
see,  as  I  write,  that  the  particular  illustrations  I  have 
given  are  all  of  them  confined  to  signals  seen  or  signals 
heard.  But  the  dot-and-line  alphabet,  in  the  few  years 
of  its  history,  has  already  shown  that  it  is  not  restricted 
to  these  two  senses,  but  makes  itself  intelligible  to  all. 
Its  message,  of  course,  is  heard  as  well  as  read.  Any 
good  operator  understands  the  sounds  of  its  ticks  upor 
the  flowing  strip  of  paper,  as  well  as  when  he  sees  it 
As  he  lies  in  his  cot  at  midnight,  he  will  expound  tht 
passing  message  without  striking  a  light  to  see  it 
But  this  is  only  what  may  be  said  of  any  written  Ian 
guage.     You  can  read  this  article  to  your  wife,  or  she 


1'HE    DOT    AND   LINE    ALPHABET.  127 

can  read  it,  as  she  prefers  ;  that  is,  she  chooses  whether 
it  shall  address  her  eye  or  her  ear.  But  the  long-and- 
short  alphabet  of  Morse  and  his  imitators  despises 
such  narrow  range.  It  addresses  whichever  of  the 
five  senses  the  listener  chooses.  This  fact  is  illustrated 
by  a  curious  set  of  anecdotes,  —  never  yet  put  in  print, 
I  think,  —  of  that  critical  despatch  which  in  one  night 
announced  General  Taylor's  death  to  this  whole  land. 
Most  of  the  readers  of  these  lines  probably  read  that 
despatch  in  the  morning's  paper.  The  compositors 
and  editors  had  read  it.  To  them  it  was  a  despatch 
to  the  eye.  But  half  the  operators  at  the  stations 
heard  it  ticked  out,  by  the  register  stroke,  and  knew 
it  before  they  wrote  it  down  for  the  press.  To  them 
it  was  a  despatch  to  the  ear.  My  good  friend  Langen- 
zunge  had  not  that  resource.  He  had  just  been  prom- 
ised, by  the  General  himself  (under  whom  he  served 
at  Palo  Alto),  the  office  of  Superintendent  of  the 
Rocky  Mountain  Lines.  He  was  returning  from 
Washington  over  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  on 
a  freight-train,  when  he  heard  of  the  President's  dan- 
ger. Langenzunge  loved  Old  Rough  and  Ready,  — 
and  he  felt  badly  about  his  own  office,  too.  But  his 
extempore  train  chose  to  stop  at  a  forsaken  shanty  -vil- 
lage on  the  Potomac,  for  four  mortal  hours,  at  mid- 
night. What  does  he  do,  but  walk  down  the  line  into 
the  darkness,  climb  a  telegraph-post,  cut  a  wire,  and 
applied  the  two  ends  to  his  tongue,  to  taste,  at  the  fatal 
moment,  the  words,  "  Died  at  half  past  ten."     Poor 


128  THE   DOT   AND   LINE   ALPHABET. 

Langenzunge  !  he  hardly  had  nerve  to  solder  the  wire 
again.  Cogs  told  me  that  they  had  just  fitted  up  the 
Naguadavick  stations  with  Bain's  chemical  revolving 
disk.  This  disk  is  charged  with  a  salt  of  potash, 
whi?h,  when  the  electric  spark  passes  through  it,  is 
changed  to  Prussian  blue.  Your  despatch  is  noise- 
lessly written  in  dark  blue  dots  and  lines.  Just  as  the 
disk  started  on  that  fatal  despatch,  and  Cogs  bent  over 
it  to  read,  his  spirit-lamp  blew  up,  —  as  the  dear  things 
will.  They  were  beside  themselves  in  the  lonely, 
dark  office ;  but,  while  the  men  were  fumbling  for 
matches,  which  would  not  go,  Cogs's  sister,  Nydia,  a 
sweet  blind  girl,  who  had  learned  Bain's  alphabet  from 
Dr.  Howe  at  South  Boston,  bent  over  the  chemical 
paper,  and  smelt  out  the  prussiate  of  potash,  as  it  formed 
itself  in  lines  and  dots  to  tell  the  sad  story.  Almost 
anybody  used  to  reading  the  blind  books  can  read  the 
embossed  Morse  messages  with  the  finger,  —  and  so 
this  message  was  read  at  all  the  midnight  way-stations 
where  no  night-work  is  expected,  and  where  the  com- 
paniis  do  not  supply  fluid  or  oil.  Within  my  narrow 
circle  of  acquaintance,  therefore,  there  were  these 
simultaneous  instances,  where  the  same  message  was 
seen,  heard,  smelled,  tasted,  and  felt.  So  universal  is 
the  dot-and-iine  alphabet,  — for  Bain's  is  on  the  same 
principle  as  Morse's. 

The  reader  see3,  therefore,  first,  that  the  dot-and- 
line  alphabet  can  be  employed  by  any  being  who  has 
command  of  any  long  and  short  symbols,  —  be  they 


THE    DOT    AND   LINE    ALPHABET.  129 

long  and  short  notches,  such  as  Robinson  Crusoe  kept 
his  accounts  with,  or  long  and  short  waves  of  electrici- 
ty, such  as  these  which  Valentia  is  sending  across  to 
the  Newfoundland  bay,  so  prophetically  and  appropri- 
ately named  "  The  Bay  of  Bulls."  Also,  I  hope  the 
reader  sees  that  the  alphabet  can  be  understood  by  any 
intelligent  being  who  has  any  one  of  the  five  senses 
left  him,  — by  all  rational  men,  that  is,  excepting  the 
few  eyeless  deaf  persons  who  have  lost  both  taste  and 
smell  in  some  complete  paralysis.  The  use  of  Morse's 
telegraph  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  small  clique 
who  possess  or  who  understand  electrical  batteries.  It 
is  not  only  the  torpedo  or  the  G-ymnotus  electricus  that 
can  send  us  messages  from  the  ocean.  Whales  in  the 
sea  can  telegraph  as  well  as  senators  on  land,  if  they 
will  only  note  the  difference  between  long  spoutings 
and  sliort  ones.  And  they  can  listen,  too.  If  they 
will  only  note  the  difference  between  long  and  short, 
the  eel  of  Ocean's  bottom  may  feel  on  his  slippery  skin 
the  smooth  messages  of  our  Presidents,  and  the  catfish, 
in  his  darkness,  look  fearless  on  the  secrets  of  a  Queen. 
Any  beast,  bird,  fish,  or  insect,  which  can  discriminate 
between  long  and  short,  may  use  the  telegraph  alpha- 
bet, if  he  have  sense  enough.  Any  creature,  which 
can  hear,  smell,  taste,  feel,  or  see,  may  take  note  of  its 
signals,  if  he  can  understand  them.  A  tired  listener 
at  church,  by  properly  varying  his  long  yawns  and  his 
short  ones,  may  express  his  opinion  of  the  sermon  to 
the  opposite  gallery  before  the    sermon  is  done.     A 

6*  m 


130  THE  DOT   AND   LINE  ALPHABET. 

dumb  tobacconist  may  trade  with  his  customers  m  an 
alphabet  of  short-sixes  and  long-nines.  A  beleaguered 
Sebastopol  may  explain  its  wants  to  the  relieving  army 
beyond  the  line  of  the  Chernaya,  by  the  lispings  of  its 
short  Paixhans  and  its  long  twenty-foura. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 


[I  had  some  opportunities,  which  no  other  writer  for  the  press 
had,  I  believe,  of  examining  the  Resolute  on  her  return  from 
that  weird  voyage  which  is  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history 
of  the  navies  of  the  world.  And,  as  I  know  of  no  other  printed 
record  of  the  whole  of  that  voyage  than  this,  which  was  published 
in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  of  June  11,  1856,  I  reprint  it 
here.  Readers  should  remember  that  the  English  government 
abandoned  all  claim  on  the  vessel ;  that  the  American  government 
then  bought  her  of  the  salvors,  refitted  her  completely,  and  sent 
her  to  England  as  a  present  to  the  Queen.  The  Queen  visited 
the  ship,  and  accepted  the  present  in  person.  The  Resolute  has 
never  since  been  to  sea.  I  do  not  load  the  page  with  authorities ; 
but  I  studied  the  original  reports  of  the  Arctic  expeditions  care- 
fully in  preparing  the  paper,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  accurate 
throughout. 

The  voyage  from  New  London  to  England,  when  she  was  thus 
returned,  is  strictly  her  last  voyage.  But  when  this  article  w«v 
printed  its  name  was  correct.] 


It  was  in  early  spring  in  1852,  early  on  the  vurx. 
mg  of  the  21st  of  April,  that  the  stout  English  dis- 
covery ship  Resolute,  manned  by  a  large  crew,  com- 
manded by  a  most  manly  man,  Henry  Kellett,  left  her 


132  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE  RESOLUTE. 

moorings  in  the  great  river  Thames,  a  little  below  the 
old  town  of  London,  was  taken  in  tow  by  a  fussy 
steam -tug,  and  proudly  started  as  one  of  a  fine  English 
squadron  in  the  great  search  of  the  nations  for  the  lost 
Sir  John  Franklin.  It  was  late  in  the  year  1855,  on 
the  24th  of  December,  that  the  same  ship,  weather- 
worn, scantily  rigged,  without  her  lighter  masts,  all  in 
the  trim  of  a  vessel  which  has  had  a  hard  fight  with 
wind,  water,  ice,  and  time,  made  the  light-house  of 
New  London,  —  waited  for  day  and  came  round  to  an- 
chor in  the  other  river  Thames,  of  New  England. 
Not  one  man  of  the  English  crew  was  on  board.  The 
gallant  Captain  Kellett  was  not  there  ;  but  in  his  place 
an  American  master,  who  had  shown,  in  his  way,  equal 
gallantry.  The  sixty  or  seventy  men  with  whom  she 
sailed  were  all  in  their  homes  more  than  a  year  ago. 
The  eleven  men  with  whom  she  returned  had  had  t 
double  parts,  and  to  work  hard  to  make  good  tht 
places  of  the  sixty.  And  between  the  day  when  the 
Englishmen  left  her,  and  the  day  the  Americans  found 
her,  she  had  spent  fifteen  months  and  more  alone. 
She  was  girt  in  by  the  ice  of  the  Arctic  seas.  Nc 
man  knows  where  she  went,  what  narrow  scapes  she 
passed  through,  how  low  her  thermometers  marked 
cold ;  —  it  is  a  bit  of  her  history  which  was  nevei 
written.  Nor  what  befell  her  little  tender,  the  "In- 
trepid," which  was  left  in  her  neighborhood,  "  ready 
for  occupation,"  just  as  she  was  left.  No  man  wil 
ever  tell  of  the  nip  that  proved  too  much  for  her,  — 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     133 

uf  the  opening  of  her  seams,  and  her  disappearance 
beneath  the  ice.  But  here  is  the  hardy  Resolute, 
which,  on  the  15th  of  May,  1854,  her  brave  command- 
er left,  as  he  was  ordered,  u  ready  for  occupation,"  — 
which  the  brave  Captain  Buddington  found  Septem- 
ber 10,  1855,  more  than  a  thousand  miles  from  there, 
and  pronounced  still  "ready  for  occupation";  —  and 
of  what  can  be  known  of  her  history  from  Old  London 
to  New  London,  from  Old  England's  Thames  to  New 
England's  Thames,  we  will  try  to  tell  the  story ;  as  it 
is  written  in  the  letters  of  her  old  officers  and  told  by 
the  lips  of  her  new  rescuers. 

For  Arctic  work,  if  ships  are  to  go  into  every  nook 
and  lane  of  ice  that  will  yield  at  all  to  wind  and  steam, 
they  must  be  as  nearly  indestructible  as  man  can  make 
them.  For  Arctic  work,  therefore,  and  for  discovery 
work,  ships  built  of  the  teak  wood  of  Malabar  and  Java 
are  considered  most  precisely  fitted.  Ships  built  of 
teak  are  said  to  be  wholly  indestructible  by  time.  To 
this  we  owe  the  fact,  which  now  becomes  part  of  a 
strange  coincidence,  that  one  of  the  old  Captain  Cook's 
ships  which  went  round  the  world  with  him  has  been, 
till  within  a  few  years,  a  whaling  among  the  American 
whalers,  revisiting,  as  a  familiar  thing,  the  shores  which 
she  was  first  to  discover.  The  English  admiralty, 
eager  to  fit  out  for  Arctic  service  a  ship  of  the  best 
build  they  could  find,  bought  the  two  teak-built  ships 
Baboo  and  Ptarmigan  in  1850,  —  sent  them  to  their  own 
dock-yards  to  be  refitted,  and  the  Baboo  became  the 


134  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE  RESOLUTE. 

Assistance,  —  the  Ptarmigan  became  the  Resolute,  of 
their  squadrons  of  Arctic  discovery. 

Does  the  reader  know  that  in  the  desolation  of  the 
Arctic  shores  the  Ptarmigan  is  the  bird  most  often 
found?  It  is  the  Arctic  grouse  or  partridge,*  and 
often  have  the  ptarmigans  of  Melville  Island  furnished 
sport  and  even  dinners  to  the  hungry  officers  of  the 
"  Resolute,"  wholly  unconscious  that  she  had  ever  been 
their  god-child,  and  had  thrown  off  their  name  only  to 
take  that  which  she  now  wears. 

Early  in  May,  1850,  just  at  the  time  we  now  know 
that  brave  Sir  John  Franklin  and  the  remnant  of  his 
crew  were  dying  of  starvation  at  the  mouth  of  Back's 
River,  the  "  Resolute  "  sailed  first  for  the  Arctic  seas, 
the  flag-ship  of  Commodore  Austin,  with  whose  little 
squadron  our  own  De  Haven  and  his  men  had  such 
pleasant  intercourse  near  Beechey  Island.  In  the 
course  of  that  expedition  she  wintered  off  Cornwallis 
Island,  —  and  in  autumn  of  the  next  year  returned  to 
England. 

Whenever  a  squadron  or  a  man  or  an  army  returns 
to  England,  unless  in  the  extreme  and  exceptional  case 
f  complete  victory  over  obstacle  invincible,  there  is 
ftl  ways  dissatisfaction.  This  is  the  English  way.  And 
go  there  was  dissatisfaction  when  Captain  Austin  re- 
turned with  his  ships  and  men.  There  was  also  still 
a  lingering  hope  that  some  trace  of  Franklin  might  yet 
be  found,  perhaps  some  of  his  party.     Yet  more,  there 

*  Tctrao  lagopus. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     135 

were  two  of  the  searching  ships  which  had  entered  the 
Polar  seas  from  Behring's  Straits  on  the  west,  the 
"  Enterprise  "  and  "  Investigator,"  which  might  need 
relief  before  they  came  through  or  returned.  Arctic 
search  became  a  passion  by  this  time,  and  at  once  a 
new  squadron  was  fitted  out  to  take  the  seas  in  the 
spring  of  1852.  This  squadron  consisted  of  the  "As- 
sistance "  and  "  Resolute  "  again,  which  had  been  re- 
fitted since  their  return,  of  the  "  Intrepid  "  and  "  Pio- 
neer," two  steamships  used  as  tenders  to  the  "  Assist- 
ance "  and  "  Resolute  "  respectively,  and  of  the  "  North 
Star,"  which  had  also  been  in  those  regions,  and  now 
went  as  a  storeship  to  the  rest  of  the  squadron.  To 
the  command  of  the  whole  Sir  Edward  Belcher  was 
appointed,  an  officer  who  had  served  in  some  of  the 
earlier  Arctic  expeditions.  Officers  and  men  volun- 
teered in  full  numbers  for  the  service,  and  these  five 
vessels  therefore  carried  out  a  body  of  men  who  brought 
more  experience  of  the  Northern  seas  together  than 
any  expedition  which  had  ever  visited  them. 

Of  these,  Captain  Henry  Kellett  had  command  of 
the  "  Resolute,"  and  was  second  in  seniority  to  Sir 
Edward  Belcher,  who  made  the  "Assistance  "  the  flag- 
ship. It  shows  what  sort  of  man  he  was,  to  say  that 
for  more  than  ten  years  he  spent  only  part  of  one  in 
England,  and  was  the  rest  of  the  time  in  an  antipodean 
hemisphere  or  a  hyperborean  zone.  Before  brave  Sir 
John  Franklin  sailed,  Captain  Kellett  was  in  the  Pa- 
cific.    Just  as  he  was  to  return  home,  he  was  ordered 


136  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE. 

into  the  Arctic  seas  to  search  for  Sir  John.  Three 
years  successively,  in  his  ship  the  "  Herald,"  he  passed 
inside  Behring's  Straits,  and  far  into  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
He  discovered  "  Herald  Island,"  the  farthest  land 
known  there.  He  was  one  of  the  last  men  to  see  Mc- 
Clure  in  the  "  Investigator "  before  she  entered  the 
Polar  seas  from  the  northwest.  He  sent  three  of  his 
men  on  board  that  ship  to  meet  them  all  again,  as  will 
be  seen,  in  strange  surroundings.  After  more  than 
seven  years  of  this  Pacific  and  Arctic  life,  he  returned 
to  England,  in  May  or  June,  1851,  and  in  the  next 
winter  volunteered  to  try  the  eastern  approach  to  the 
same  Arctic  seas  in  our  ship,  the  "Resolute."  Some 
of  his  old  officers  sailed  with  him. 

We  know  nothing  of  Captain  Kellett  but  what  his 
own  letters,  despatches,  and  instructions  show,  as  they 
are  now  printed  in  enormous  parliamentary  blue-books, 
and  what  the  despatches  and  letters  of  his  officers  and 
of  his  commander  show.  But  these  papers  present  the 
picture  of  a  vigorous,  hearty  man,  kind  to  his  crew 
and  a  great  favorite  with  them,  brave  in  whatever  trial, 
always  considerate,  generous  to  his  officers,  reposing 
confidence  in  their  integrity  ;  a  man,  in  short,  of  whom 
the  world  will  be  apt  to  hear  more.  His  commander, 
Sir  Edward  Belcher,  tried  by  the  same  standard,  ap- 
pears a  brave  and  ready  man,  apt  to  talk  of  himself, 
not  very  considerate  of  his  inferiors,  confident  in  his 
own  opinion ;  in  short,  a  man  with  whom  one  would 
not  care  to  spend  three  Arctic  winters.     With  him,  as 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     187 

we  trace  the  "Resolute's  "  fortunes,  we  shall  have 
much  to  do.  Of  Captain  Kellett  we  shall  see  some- 
thing  all  along  till  the  day  when  he  sadly  left  her,  as 
bidden  by  Sir  Edward  Belcher,  w  ready  for  occupa- 
tion." 

With  such  a  captain,  and  with  sixty-odd  men,  the 
"  Resolute  "  cast  off  her  moorings  in  the  gray  of  the 
morning  on  the  21st  of  April,  1852,  to  go  in  search  of 
Sir  John  Franklin.  The  brave  Sir  John  had  died  two 
years  before,  but  no  one  knew  that,  nor  whispered  it. 
The  river  steam-tug  "  Monkey  "  took  her  in  tow,  oth- 
er steamers  took  the  "  Assistance  "  and  the  "  North 
Star";  the  " Intrepid"  and  "Pioneer"  got  up  their 
own  steam,  and  to  the  cheers  of  the  little  company 
gathered  at  Greenhithe  to  see  them  off,  they  went  down 
the  Thames.  At  the  Nore,  the  steamship  "  Desper- 
ate "  took  the  "  Resolute "  in  charge,  Sir  Edward 
Belcher  made  the  signal  "  Orkneys  "  as  the  place  of 
rendezvous,  and  in  four  days  she  was  there,  in  Strom- 
ness  outer  harbor.  Here  there  was  a  little  shifting  of 
provisions  and  coal-bags,  those  of  the  men  who  could 
get  on  shore  squandered  their  spending-money,  and 
then,  on  the  28th  of  April,  she  and  hers  bade  good 
by  to  British  soil.  And,  though  they  have  welcomed 
it  again  long  since,  she  has  not  seen  it  from  then  till 
now. 

The  u  Desperate  "  steamer  took  her  in  tow,  she  sent 
her  Dwn  tow-lines  to  the  "North  Star,"  and  for  three 
days  in  this  procession  of  so  wild  and  weird  a  name. 


138     THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  KESOLUTK 

they  three  forged  on  westward  toward  Greenland, — 
a  train  which  would  have  startled  any  old  Viking  had 
he  fallen  in  with  it,  with  a  fresh  gale  blowing  all  the 
time  and  "a  nasty  sea."  On  the  fourth  day  all  the 
tow-lines  broke  or  were  cast  off  however,  Neptune  and 
the  winds  claimed  their  own,  and  the  "  Resolute " 
tried  her  own  resources.  The  towing  steamers  were 
sent  home  in  a  few  days  more,  and  the  squadron  left 
to  itself 

We  have  too  much  to  tell  in  this  short  article  to  be 
able  to  dwell  on  the  details  of  her  visits  to  the  hospi- 
table Danes  of  Greenland,  or  of  her  passage  through 
the  ice  of  Baffin's  Bay.  But  here  is  one  incident, 
which,  as  the  event  has  proved,  is  part  of  a  singular 
coincidence.  On  the  6th  of  July  all  the  squadron, 
tangled  in  the  ice,  joined  a  fleet  of  whalers  beset  in  it, 
by  a  temporary  opening  between  the  gigantic  masses. 
Caught  at  the  head  of  a  bight  in  the  ice,  with  the  "As- 
sistance" and  the  "Pioneer,"  the  "Resolute"  was, 
for  the  emergency,  docked  there,  and,  by  the  ice  clos- 
ing behind  her,  was,  for  a  while,  detained.  Meanwhile 
the  rest  of  the  fleet,  whalers  and  discovery  ships,  passed 
on  by  a  little  lane  of  water,  the  American  whaler  "  Mc- 
Lellan"  leading;.  This  "McLellan"  was  one  of  the 
ships  of  the  spirited  New  London  merchants,  Messrs. 
Perkins  &  Smith,  another  of  whose  vessels  has  now 
found  the  "  Resolute  "  and  befriended  her  in  her  need 
in  those  seas.  The  "  McLellan  "  was  their  pioneei 
vessel  there. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  EESOLUTE.     139 

The  "  North  Star  "  of  the  English  squadron  followed 
the  "  McLellan."  A  long  train  stretched  out  behind. 
Whalers  and  government  ships,  as  they  happened  to 
fall  into  line,  —  a  long  three  quarters  of  a  mile.  It 
was  lovely  weather,  and,  though  the  long  lane  closed 
up  so  that  they  could  neither  go  back  nor  forward,  — 
nobody  apprehended  injury  till  it  was  announced  on 
the  morning  of  the  7th  that  the  poor  "McLellan  "  was 
nipped  in  the  ice  and  her  crew  were  deserting  her. 
Sir  Edward  Belcher  was  then  in  condition  to  befriend 
her,  sent  his  carpenters  to  examine  her,  —  put  a  few 
charges  of  powder  into  the  ice  to  relieve  the  pressure 
upon  her,  —  and  by  the  end  of  the  day  it  was  agreed 
that  her  injuries  could  be  repaired,  and  her  crew  went 
on  board  again.  But  there  is  no  saying  what  ice  will 
do  next.  The  next  morning  there  was  a  fresh  wind, 
the  "  McLellan  "  was  caught  again,  and  the  water 
poured  into  her,  a  steady  stream.  She  drifted  about 
unmanageable,  now  into  one  ship,  now  into  another, 
and  the  English  whalemen  began  to  pour  on  board,  to 
help  themselves  to  such  plunder  as  they  chose.  At 
the  Captain's  request,  Sir  Edward  Belcher  put  an  end 
to  this,  sent  sentries  on  board,  and  working  parties,  to 
clear  her  as  far  as  might  be,  and  keep  account  of  what 
her  stores  were  and  where  they  went  to.  In  a  day  or 
two  more  she  sank  to  the  water's  edge  and  a  friendly 
charge  or  two  of  powder  put  her  out  of  the  way  of  harm 
to  the  rest  of  the  fleet.  After  such  a  week  spent  to- 
gether it  will  easily  be  understood  that  the  New  London 


£40     THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

whalemen  did  not  feel  strangers  on  board  one  of  Sil 
Edward's  vessels  when  they  found  her  "  ready  for  oc- 
cupation "  three  years  and  more  afterwards. 

In  this  tussle  with  the  ice,  the  "  Resolute "  was 
nipped  once  or  twice,  but  she  has  known  harder  nips 
than  that  since.  As  July  wore  away,  she  made  her 
way  across  Baffin's  Bay,  and  on  the  10th  of  August 
made  Beechey  Island,  —  known  now  as  the  head-quar- 
ters for  years  of  the  searching  squadrons,  because,  as  it 
happened,  the  place  where  the  last  traces  of  Franklin's 
ships  were  found, — the  wintering  place  of  his  first 
winter.  But  Captain  Kellett  was  on  what  is  called 
the  "  western  search,"  and  he  only  stayed  at  Beechey 
Island  to  complete  his  provisions  from  the  storeships, 
and  in  the  few  days  which  this  took,  to  see  for  himself 
the  sad  memorials  of  Franklin's  party,  —  and  then  the 
"  Resolute  "  and  "  Intrepid  "  were  away,  through 
Barrow's  Straits,  —  on  the  track  which  Parry  ran 
along  with  such  success  thirty-three  years  before,  — 
and  wdiich  no  one  had  followed  with  as  good  fortune 
as  he,  until  now. 

On  the  15th  of  August  Captain  Kellett  was  off; 
bade  good  by  to  the  party  at  Beechey  Island,  and  was 
to  try  his  fortune  in  independent  command.  He  had 
not  the  best  of  luck  at  starting.  The  reader  must  re- 
member  that  one  great  object  of  these  Arctic  expedi- 
tions was  to  leave  provisions  for  starving  men.  For 
such  a  purpose,  and  for  travelling  parties  of  his  own 
over  the  ice,  Captair  Kellett  was  to  leave  a  depot  at 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     141 

Assistance  Bay,  some  thirty  miles  only  from  Beeohey 
Island.  In  nearing  for  that  purpose  the  u  Resolute  " 
grounded,  was  left  with  but  seven  feet  of  water,  the 
ice  threw  her  over  on  her  starboard  bilge,  and  she 
was  almost  lost.  Not  quite  lost,  however,  or  we 
should  not  be  telling  her  story.  At  midnight  she  was 
got  off,  leaving  sixty  feet  of  her  false  keel  behind. 
Captain  Kellett  forged  on  in  her,  —  left  a  depot  here 
and  another  there,  —  and  at  the  end  of  the  short  Arc  - 
tic  summer  had  come  as  far  westward  as  Sir  Edward 
Parry  came.  Here  is  the  most  westerly  point  the 
reader  will  find  on  most  maps  far  north  in  America, — 
the  Melville  Island  of  Captain  Parry.  Captain  Kel- 
lett's  associate,  Captain  McClintock  of  the  "  Intrep- 
id," had  commanded  the  only  party  which  had  been 
here  since  Parry.  In  1851  he  came  over  from  Austin's 
squadron  with  a  sledge  party.  So  confident  is  every 
one  there  that  nobody  has  visited  those  parts  unless 
he  was  sent,  that  McClintock  encouraged  his  men  one 
lay  by  telling  them  that  if  they  got  on  well,  they 
should  have  an  old  cart  Parry  had  left  thirty-odd  year3 
before,  to  make  a  fire  of.  Sure  enough  ;  they  came  to 
the  place,  and  there  was  the  wreck  of  the  cart  just  as 
Parry  left  it.  They  even  found  the  ruts  the  old  cart 
left  in  the  ground  as  if  they  had  not  been  left  a  week. 
Captain  Kellett  came  into  harbor,  and  with  great 
spirit  he  and  his  officers  began  to  prepare  for  the  ex- 
tended searching  parties  of  the  next  spring.  The 
u  Resolute  "  and  her  tender  came  to  anchor  off  DeaJy 


142  THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

Island,  and  there  she  spent  the  next  eleven  months  of 
her  life,  with  great  news  around  her  in  that  time. 

There  is  not  much  time  for  travelling  in  autumn. 
The  days  grow  very  short  and  very  cold.  But  what 
days  there  were  were  spent  in  sending  out  carts  and 
sledges  with  depots  of  provisions,  which  the  parties  of 
the  next  spring  could  use.  Different  officers  were 
already  assigned  to  different  lines  of  search  in  spring. 
On  their  journeys  they  would  be  gone  three  months 
and  more,  with  a  party  of  some  eight  men,  —  drag- 
ging a  sled  very  like  a  Yankee  wood-sled  with  their 
instruments  and  provisions,  over  ice  and  snow.  To 
extend  those  searches  as  much  as  possible,  and  to  pre- 
pare the  men  for  that  work  when  it  should  come, 
advanced  depots  were  now  sent  forward  in  the  autumn, 
under  the  charge  of  the  gentlemen  who  would  have  to 
use  them  in  the  spring. 

One  of  these  parties,  the  u  South  line  of  Mel- 
ville Island"  party,  was  under  a  spirited  young  officer 
Mr.  Mecliam,  who  had  tried  such  service  in  the  last 
expedition.  He  had  two  of  "  her  Majesty's  sledges," 
"  The  Discovery  "  and  "  The  Fearless,"  a  depot  of. 
twenty  days'  provision  to  be  used  in  the  spring,  and 
enough  for  twenty-five  days"  present  use.  All  the 
sledges  had  little  flags,  made  by  some  young  lady 
friends  of  Sir  Edward  Belcher's.  Mr.  Mecham's  bore 
an  armed  hand  and  sword  on  a  white  ground,  with  the 
motto,  "  Per  mare,  per  terram,  per  glaciem."  Over 
mud,  land,  snow,  and  ice  they  carried  their  de*pot,  and 


THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE.  143 

wero  nearly  back,  when,  on  the  12th  of  October }  1852, 
Mr.  Mecham  made  the  great  discovery  of  the  expe- 
dition. 

On  the  shore  of  Melville  Island,  above  Winter  Har- 
bor, is  a  great  sandstone  boulder,  ten  feet  high,  seven 
or  eight  broad,  and  twenty  and  more  long,  which  is 
known  to  all  those  who  have  anything  to  do  with 
those  regions  as  "  Parry's  sandstone,"  for  it  stood  near 
Parry's  observatory  the  winter  he  spent  here,  and  Mr. 
Fisher,  his  surgeon,  cut  on  a  flat  face  of  it  this  in- 
scription :  — 

HIS   BRITANNIC    MAJESTY'S 

ships  HECLA  and  GRIPER, 

COMMANDED   BY 

W.  E.  Parry  and  Mr.  Liddon, 

WINTERED  IN  THE  ADJACENT 
HARBOR  1819-20. 

A.  Fisher,  Sculpt. 

It  was  a  sort  of  God  Terminus  put  up  to  mark  the 
end  of  that  expedition,  as  the  Danish  gentlemen  tell 
us  our  Dighton  rock  is  the  last  point  of  Thorflnn's  ex- 
pedition to  these  parts.  Nobody  came  to  read  Mr. 
Fisher's  inscription  for  thirty  years  and  more,  —  a  lit- 
tle Arctic  hare  took  up  her  home  under  the  great 
rock,  and  saw  the  face  of  man  for  the  first  time  when, 
on  the  5th  of  June,  1851,  Mr.  McClintock,  on  his  first 
expedition  this  way,  had  stopped  to  see  whether  possi- 
bly any  of  Franklin's  men  had  ever  visited  it.  He 
found  no  signs  of  them,  had  not  so  much  time  as  Mr. 
Fisher  for  stone-cutting,  but  carved  the  figures  1851 


144    THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

on  the  stone,  and  left  it  and  the  hare.  To  this  stone, 
on  his  way  back  to  the  "  Resolute,"  Mr.  Mecham  came 
again  (as  we  said)  on  the  12th  of  October,  one 
memorable  Tuesday  morning,  having  been  bidden 
to  leav*3  a  record  there.  He  went  on  in  advance  of 
his  party,  meaning  to  cut  1852  on  the  stone.  On  top 
of  it  was  a  small  cairn  of  stones  built  by  Mr.  McClin- 
tock  the  year  before.  Mecham  examined  this,  and  to 
his  surprise  a  copper  cylinder  rolled  out  from  under 
a  spirit  tin.  u  On  opening  it,  I  drew  out  a  roll  folded 
in  a  bladder,  which,  being  frozen,  broke  and  crumbled. 
From  its  dilapidated  appearance,  I  thought  at  the  mo- 
ment it  must  be  some  record  of  Sir  Edward  Parry, 
and,  fearing  I  might  damage  it,  laid  it  down  with  the 
intention  of  lighting  the  fire  to  thaw  it.  My  curios- 
ity, however,  overcame  my  prudence,  and  on  open 
ing  it  carefully  with  my  knife,  I  came  to  a  roll  of  car- 
tridge paper  with  the  impression  fresh  upon  the  seals. 
My  astonishment  may  be  conceived  on  finding  it  con- 
tained an  account  of  the  proceedings  of  H.  M.  ship  '  In- 
vestigator '  since  parting  company  with  the  '  Herald ' 
[Captain  Kellett's  old  ship]  in  August,  1850,  in  Behr- 
ing's  Straits.  Also  a  chart  which  disclosed  to  view  not 
only  the  long-sought  Northwest  Passage,  but  the 
completion  of  the  survey  of  Banks  and  Wollaston  lands. 
Opened  and  indorsed  Commander  McClintock's  de- 
spatch ;  found  it  contained  the  following  additions  ;  — 

"'  Opened  and  copied  by  his  old  friend  and  messmate  upon  this 
date,  April  28,  1852.  Robert  McClurb 

"'Party  all  well  and  return  to  Investigator  to-day.'  " 


THE   LAST   VOYAGE    OF    THE   RESOLUTE.  145 

A  great  discovery  indeed  to  flash  across  one  in  a 
minute:     The   "  Investigator "   had  not   been    heard 
from  for  more  than  two  years.     Here  was  news  of  her 
not  yet  six  months  old.     The   Northwest  Passage  had 
been  dreamed  of  for  three  centuries  and  more.     Here 
was   news    of  its   discovery,  —  news    that   had    been 
known  to  Captain  McClure  for  two  years.     McClure 
and    McClintock    were    lieutenants    together   in   the 
"  Enterprise"  when  she  was  sent  after  Sir  John  Frank- 
lin in  1848,  and  wintered  together  at  Port  Leopold 
the  next   winter.     Now,  from   different  hemispheres; 
they  had  come  so  near  meeting  at  this  old  block  of 
sandstone.     Mr.  Mecham  bade  his  mate  build  a  new 
cairn,  to  put  the  record  of  the  story  in,  and  hurried  on 
to  the  "  Resolute"  with  his  great  news,  —  news  of  al- 
most   everybody  but    Sir  John  Franklin.     Strangely 
enough,  the  other  expedition,  Captain  Collinson's,  had 
had  a  party  in  that  neighborhood,  between  the  other 
two,  under  Mr.  Parks ;  but  it  was  his  extreme  point 
possible,  and  he  could  not  reach  the  Sandstone,  though 
he  saw  the  ruts  of  McClure's  sleigh.     This  was  not 
known  till  long  afterwards. 

The  "  Investigator,"  as  it  appeared  from  this  despatch 
of  Captain  McClure's,  had  been  frozen  up  in  the  Bay  of 
Mercy  of  Banks  Land  :  Banks  Land  having  been  for 
thirty  years  at  once  an  Ultima  Thule  and  Terra  In- 
cognita, put  down  on  the  maps  where  Captain  Parry 
saw  it  across  thirty  miles  of  ice  and  water  in  1819. 
Perhaps    she  was    still   in  that  same   bay :  these  old 

7 


146  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE  RESOLUTE. 

friends  wintering  there,  while  the  "  Resolute "  and 
"  Intrepid  "  were  lying  under  Dealy  Island,  an'd  only 
one  hundred  and  seventy  miles  between.  It  must  have 
been  tantalizing  to  all  parties  to  wait  the  winter  through, 
and  not  even  get  a  message  across.  But  until  winter 
made  it  too  cold  and  dark  to  travel,  the  ice  in  the  strait 
was  so  broken  up  that  it  was  impossible  to  attempt  to 
traverse  it,  even  with  a  light  boat,  for  the  lanes  of  water. 
So  the  different  autumn  parties  came  in,  the  last  on  the 
last  of  October,  and  the  officers  and  men  entered  on 
their  winter's  work  and  play,  to  push  off  the  winter 
days  as  quickly  as  they  could. 

The  winter  was  very  severe ;  and  it  proved  that, 
as  the  "  Resolute"  lay,  they  were  a  good  deal  exposed 
to  the  wind.  But  they  kept  themselves  busy,  —  ex- 
ercised freely,  —  found  game  quite  abundant  within 
reasonable  distances  on  shore,  whenever  the  light 
served,  —  kept  schools  for  the  men,  —  delivered  scien- 
tific lectures  to  whoever  would  listen,  —  established 
the  theatre  for  which  the  ship  had  been  provided  at 
home,  —  and  gave  juggler's  exhibitions  by  way  of  va- 
riety. The  recent  system  of  travelling  in  the  fall  and 
spring  cuts  in  materially  to  the  length  of  the  Arctic 
winters  as  Ross,  Parry,  and  Back  used  to  experience 
it,  and  it  was  only  from  the  1st  of  November  to  the 
10th  of  March  that  they  were  left  to  their  own  re- 
sources. Late  in  October  one  of  the  "  Resolute's  "  men 
died,  and  in  December  one  of  the  "  Intrepid's,"  but, 
excepting    these    cases,   they   had  little   sickness,   foi 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     147 

weeks  no  one  on  the  sick-list ;  indeed,  Captain  Kellett 
says  cheerfully  that  a  sufficiency  of  good  provisions, 
with  plenty  of  work  in  the  open  air,  will  insure  good 
health  in  that  climate. 

As  early  in  the  spring  as  he  dared  risk  a  travelling 
party,  namely,  on  the  10th  of  March,  1853,  he  sent 
what  they  all  called  a  forlorn  hope  across  to  the  Bay 
of  Mercy,  to  find  any  traces  of  the  "  Investigator  " ; 
for  they  scarcely  ventured  to  hope  that  she  was  still 
there.  This  start  was  earlier  by  thirty-five  days  than 
the  early  parties  had  started  on  the  preceding  expedi- 
tion. But  it  was  every  way  essential  that,  if  Captain 
McClure  had  wintered  in  the  Bay  of  Mercy,  the  mes^ 
senger  should  reach  him  before  he  sent  off  any  or  all 
his  men,  in  travelling  parties,  in  the  spring.  The  little 
forlorn  hope  consisted  of  ten  men  under  the  command 
of  Lieutenant  Pirn,  an  officer  who  had  been  with  Cap- 
tain Kellett  in  the  "  Herald  "  on  the  Pacific  side,  had 
spent  a  winter  in  the  "  Plover  "  up  Behring's  Straits, 
and  had  been  one  of  the  last  men  whom  the  "  Investiga- 
tor "  had  seen  before  they  put  into  the  Arctic  Ocean,  to 
discover,  as  it  proved,  the  Northwest  Passage. 

Here  we  must  stop  a  moment,  to  tell  what  one  oi 
these  sledge  parties  is  by  whose  efforts  so  much  has 
been  added  to  our  knowledge  of  Arctic  geography,  in 
journeys  which  could  never  have  been  achieved  in 
ships  or  boats.  In  the  work  of  the  "  Resolute's  >  par- 
ties, in  this  spring  of  1852,  Commander  McClintock 
travelled  1,325  miles  with  his  sledge,  and  Lieutenant 


148     THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

Mecham  1,163  miles  with  his,  through  regions  before 
wholly  unexplored.  The  sledge,  as  we  have  said,  is 
in  general  contour  not  unlike  a  Yankee  wood-sled, 
about  eleven  feet  long.  The  runners  are  curved  at 
each  end.  The  sled  is  fitted  with  a  lio;ht  canvas 
trough,  so  adjusted  that,  in  case  of  necessity,  all  the 
stores,  &c,  can  be  ferried  over  any  narrow  lane  of  wa- 
ter in  the  ice.  There  are  packed  on  this  sled  a  tent 
for  eight  or  ten  men  ;  five  or  six  pikes,  one  or  more  of 
which  is  fitted  as  an  ice-chisel ;  two  large  buffalo- 
skins,  a  water-tight  floor-cloth,  which  contrives 

"  a  double  debt  to  pay, 
A  floor  by  night,  the  sledge's  sail  by  day  " 

(and  it  must  be  remembered  that  "  day  "  and  "  night '' 
in  those  regions  are  very  equivocal  terms).  There 
are,  besides,  a  cooking-apparatus,  of  which  the  fire  is 
made  in  spirit  or  tallow  lamps,  one  or  two  guns,  a 
pick  and  shovel,  instruments  for  observation,  panni- 
kins, spoons,  and  a  little  magazine  of  such  necessaries, 
with  the  extra  clothing  of  the  party.  Then  the  pro- 
vision, the  supply  of  which  measures  the  length  of 
the  expedition,  consists  of  about  a  pound  of  bread  and 
a  pound  of  pemmican  per  man  per  day,  six  ounces  of 
pork,  and  a  little  preserved  potato,  rum,  lime-juice, 
tea,  chocolate,  sugar,  tobacco,  or  other  such  creature 
comforts.  The  sled  is  fitted  with  two  drag-ropes,  at 
which  the  men  haul.  The  officer  goes  ahead  to  find 
the  best  way  among  hummocks  of  ice  or  masses  oi 
snow.     Sometimes  on  a  smooth  floe,  before  the  wind. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     149 

the  floor-cloth  is  set  for  a  sail,  and  she  runs  oft  mer- 
rily, perhaps  with  several  of  the  crew  on  board,  and 
the  rest  running  to  keep  up.  But  sometimes  over 
broken  ice  it  is  a  constant  task  to  get  her  on  at  all. 
You  hear,  "  One,  two,  three,  haul"  all  day  long,  as  she 
is  worked  out  of  one  ice  "  cradle-hole"  over  a  hummock 
into  another.  Different  parties  select  different  hours 
for  travelling.  Captain  Kellett  finally  considered  that 
the  best  division  of  time,  when,  as  usual,  they  had  con- 
stant daylight,  was  to  start  at  four  in  the  afternoon, 
travel  till  ten  p.  m.,  breakfast  then,  tent  and  rest  four 
hours  ;  travel  four  more,  tent,  dine,  and  sleep  nine 
hours.  This  secured  sleep,  when  the  sun  was  the 
highest  and  most  trying  to  the  eyes.  The  distances 
accomplished  with  this  equipment  are  truly  surprising. 
Each  man,  of  course,  is  dressed  as  warmly  as  flan- 
nel, woollen  cloth,  leather,  and  seal-skin  will  dress  him. 
For  such  long  journeying,  the  study  of  boots  becomes 
a  science,  and  our  authorities  are  full  of  discussions  as 
to  canvas  or  woollen,  or  carpet  or  leather  boots,  of 
strings  and  of  buckles.  When  the  time  "  to  tent  " 
comes,  the  pikes  are  fitted  for  tent-poles,  and  the  tent 
set  up,  its  door  to  leeward,  on  the  ice  or  snow.  The 
floor-cloth  is  laid  for  the  carpet.  At  an  hour  fixed, 
all  talking  must  stop.  There  is  just  room  enough  for 
the  party  to  lie  side  by  side  on  the  floor-cloth.  Each 
man  gets  into  a  long  felt  bag,  made  of  heavy  felting  lit- 
erally nearly  half  an  inch  thick.  He  brings  this  up 
wholly  over  his  head,  and  buttons  himself  in.     He  has  a 


150  THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE. 

little  hole  in  it  to  breathe  through.  Over  the  felt  is 
sometimes  a  brown  holland  bag,  meant  to  keep  out  mois- 
ture. The  officer  lies  farthest  in  the  tent,  —  as  being 
next  the  wind,  the  point  of  hardship  and  so  of  honor. 
The  cook  for  the  day  lies  next  the  doorway,  as  being 
first  to  be  called.  Side  by  side  the  others  lie  between. 
Over  them  all  Mackintosh  blankets  with  the  buf- 
falo-robes are  drawn,  by  what  power  this  deponent 
sayeth  not,  not  knowing.  No  watch  is  kept,  for 
there  is  little  danger  of  intrusion.  Once  a  whole  par- 
ty was  startled  by  a  white  bear  smelling  at  them,  who 
waked  one  of  their  dogs,  and  a  droll  time  they  had  of 
it,  springing  to  their  arms  while  enveloped  in  their 
sacks.  But  we  remember  no  other  instance  where  a 
sentinel  was  needed.  And  occasionally  in  the  journals 
the  officer  notes  that  he  overslept  in  the  morning,  and 
did  not  u  call  the  cook"  early  enough.  What  a  pas- 
sion is  sleep,  to  be  sure,  that  one  should  oversleep 
with  such  comforts  round  him  ! 

Some  thirty  or  forty  parties,  thus  equipped,  set  out 
from  the  "  Resolute"  while  she  was  under  Captain  Kel- 
lett's  charge,  on  various  expeditions.  As  the  journey 
of  Lieutenant  Pirn  to  the  u  Investigator "  at  Banks 
Land  was  that  on  which  turned  the  great  victory  of 
her  voyage,  we  will  let  that  stand  as  a  specimen  of  all. 
None  of  the  others,  however,  were  undertaken  at  so 
early  a  period  of  the  year,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
several  others  were  much  longer,  —  some  of  them,  as 
has  been  said,  occupying  three  months  and  more. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     lbl 

Lieutenant  Pirn  had  been  appointed  in  the  autumn  to 
the  "Banks  Land  search,"  and  had  carried  out  his 
depots  of  provisions  when  the  other  officers  took  theirs. 
Captain  McClure's  chart  and  despatch  made  it  no 
longer  necessary  to  have  that  coast  surveyed,  but 
made  it  all  the  more  necessary  to  have  some  one  go 
and  see  if  he  was  still  there.  The  chances  were 
against  this,  as  a  whole  summer  had  intervened  since 
he  was  heard  from.  Lieutenant  Pirn  proposed,  how- 
ever, to  travel  all  round  Banks  Land,  which  is  an  isl- 
and about  the  size  and  shape  of  Ireland,  in  search 
of  him,  Collinson,  Franklin,  or  anybody.  Captain 
Kellett,  however,  told  him  not  to  attempt  this  with  his 
force,  but  to  return  to  the  ship  by  the  route  ne  went. 
First  he  was  to  go  to  the  Bay  of  Mercy;  if  the  "In- 
vestigator "  was  gone,  he  was  to  follow  any  traces  of 
her,  and,  if  possible,  communicate  with  her  or  her 
consort,  the  "  Enterprise." 

Lieutenant  Pirn  started  with  a  sledge  and  seven 
men,  and  a  dog-sledge  with  two  under  Dr.  Domville, 
the  surgeon,  who  was  to  bring  back  the  earliest  news 
fiom  the  Bay  of  Mercy  to  the  captain.  There  was  a 
relief  sledge  to  go  part  way  and  return.  For  the  in- 
tense cold  of  this  early  season  they  had  even  more 
careful  arrangements  than  those  we  have  described. 
Their  tent  was  doubled.  They  had  extra  Mackin- 
toshes, and  whatever  else  could  be  devised.  They  had 
bad  luck  at  starting,  —  broke  down  one  sledge  and 
had  to  send  back  for  another ;  had  bad  weather,  and 


152     THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

muse  encamp,  once  for  three  days.  Ct  Fortunately,'1 
says  the  lieutenant  of  this  encampment,  "  the  temper- 
ature arose  from  fifty-one  below  zero  to  thirty-six  be- 
low, and  there  remained,"  while  the  drift  accumu- 
lated to  such  a  degree  around  the  tents,  that  within 
them  the  thermometer  was  only  twenty  below,  and, 
when  they  cooked,  rose  to  zero.  A  pleasant  time  of 
it  they  must  have  had  there  on  the  ice,  for  those  three 
days,  in  their  bags  smoking  and  sleeping !  No  won- 
der that  on  the  fourth  day  they  found  they  moved 
slowly,  so  cramped  and  benumbed  were  they.  This 
morning  a  new  sledge  came  to  them  from  the  ship  ; 
they  got  out  of  their  bags,  packed,  and  got  under  way 
again.  They  were  still  running  along  shore,  but  soon 
sent  back  the  relief  party  which  had  brought  the  new 
sled,  and  in  a  few  days  more  set  out  to  cross  the  strait, 
some  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles  wide,  which,  when  it 
is  open,  as  no  man  has  ever  seen  it,  is  one  of  the  North- 
west Passages  discovered  by  these  expeditions. 

Horrible  work  it  was  !  Foggy  and  dark,  so  they 
could  not  choose  the  road,  and,  as  it  happened,  lit  on 
the  very  worst  mass  of  broken  ice  in  the  channel. 
Just  as  they  entered  on  it,  one  black  raven  must  needs 
appear.  "  Bad  luck,"  said  the  men.  And  when  Mr. 
Pirn  shot  a  musk-ox,  their  first,  and  the  wounded 
creature  got  away,  "  So  much  for  the  raven,"  they 
croaked  again.  Only  three  miles  the  first  day,  four 
miles  the  second  day,  two  and  a  half  the  third,  and 
half  a  mile  the  fourth ;    this  was  all  they  gained  by 


TflE   LAST    VOYAGE    OF   THE   RESOLUTE.  153 

most  laborious  hauling  over  the  broken  ice,  dragging 
one  sledge  at  a  time,  and  sometimes  carrying  forward 
the  stores  separately  and  going  back  for  the  sledges. 
Two  days  more  gave  them  eight  miles  more,  but  on 
the  seventh  day  on  this  narrow  strait,  the  dragging 
being  a  little  better,  the  great  sledge  slipped  off  a 
smooth  hummock,  broke  one  runner  to  smash,  and 
"there  they  were." 

If  the  two  officers  had  a  little  bit  of  a  "tiff"  out 
there  on  the  ice,  with  the  thermometer  at  eighteen  be- 
low, only  a  little  dog-sledge  to  get  them  anywhere, 
their  ship  a  hundred  miles  off,  fourteen  days'  travel  as 
they  had  come,  nobody  ever  knew  it ;  they  kept  their 
secret  from  us,  it  is  nobody's  business,  and  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at.  Certainly  they  did  not  agree.  The 
Doctor,  whose  sled,  the  u  James  Fitzjames,"  was  still 
sound,  thought  they  had  best  leave  the  stores  and  all 
go  back ;  but  the  Lieutenant,  who  had  the  command, 
did  not  like  to  give  it  up,  so  he  took  the  dogs  and  the 
"  James  Fitzjames  "  and  its  two  men  and  went  on, 
leaving  the  Doctor  on  the  floe,  but  giving  him  direc- 
tions to  go  back  to  land  with  the  wounded  sledge  and 
wait  for  him  to  return.  And  the  Doctor  did  it,  like 
a  spirited  fellow,  travelling  back  and  forth  for  what  he 
could  not  take  in  one  journey,  as  the  man  did  in  the 
story  who  had  a  peck  of  corn,  a  goose,  and  a  wclf  to 
get  across  the  river.  Over  ice,  over  hummock  the 
Lieutenant  went  on  his  way  with  his  dogs,  not  a  bear 
nor  a  seal  nor  a  hare  nor  a  wolf  to  feed  them  with 

7* 


154  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE. 

preserved  meats,  which  had  been  put  up  with  dainty 
care  for  men  and  women,  all  he  had  for  the  ravenous, 
tasteless  creatures,  who  would  have  been  more  pleased 
with  blubber,  came  to  Banks  Land  at  last,  but  no  game 
there  ;  awful  drifts ;  shut  up  in  the  tent  for  a  whole 
day,  and  he  himself  so  sick  he  could  scarcely  stand ! 
There  were  but  three  of  them  in  all ;  and  the  captain 
of  the  sledge  not  unnaturally  asked  poor  Pim,  when  he 
was  at  the  worst,  "  What  shall  I  do,  sir,  if  you  die  ?" 
Not  a  very  comforting  question  ! 

He  did  not  die.  He  got  a  few  hours'  sleep,  felt 
better  and  started  again,  but  had  the  discourage- 
ment of  finding  such  tokens  of  an  open  strait  the  last 
year  that  he  felt  sure  that  the  ship  he  was  going  to 
look  for  would  be  gone.  One  morning,  he  had  been 
off  for  game  for  the  dogs  unsuccessfully,  and,  when  he 
came  back  to  his  men,  learned  that  they  had  seen  sev- 
enteen deer.  After  them  goes  Pim ;  finds  them  to 
be  three  hares,  magnified  by  fog  and  mirage,  and  their 
long  ears  answering  for  horns.  This  same  day  they 
got  upon  the  Bay  of  Mercy.  No  ship  in  sight! 
Right  across  it  goes  the  Lieutenant  to  look  for  records ; 
when,  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  Robert  Hoile  sees 
something  black  up  the  bay.  Through  the  glass  the 
Lieutenant  makes  it  out  to  be  a  ship.  They  change 
their  direction  at  once.  Over  the  ice  towards  her ! 
He  leaves  the  sledge  at  three  and  goes  on.  How  far  it 
seems  !  At  four  he  can  see  people  walking  about,  and  a 
pile  of  stones  and  flag-staff  on  the  beach,     Keep  on, 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     155 

Pirn :  snail  one  never  get  there  ?  At  five  he  is  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  her,  and  no  one  has  seen  him.  But 
just  then  the  very  persons  see  him  who  ought  to  ! 
Pim  beckons,  Waves  his  arms  as  the  Esquimaux  do  in 
sign  ;f  friendship.  Captain  McOlure  and  his  lieuten- 
ant Has  well  are  "  taking  their  exercise,"  the  chief 
business  of  those  winters,  and  at  last  see  him  !  Pim  is 
black  a=  Erebus  from  the  smoke  of  cooking  in  the 
little  tent.  McClure  owns,  not  to  surprise  only,  but 
to  a  twinge  of  dismay.  "  I  paused  in  my  advance," 
says  he,  "  doubting  who  or  what  it  could  be,  a  denizen 
of  this  or  the  other  world."  But  this  only  lasts  a 
moment.  Pim  speaks.  Brave  man  that  he  can. 
How  his  voice  must  have  choked,  as  if  he  were  in 
a  dream.  UI  am  Lieutenant  Pim,  late  of  'Herald.' 
Captain  Kellett  is  at  Melville  Island."  Well-chosen 
words,  Pim,  to  be  sent  in  advance  over  the  hundred 
yards  of  floe  !  Nothing  about  the  "  Resolute,"  — 
that  would  have  confused  them.  But  "  Pim,"  "Her- 
ald," and  "  Kellett  "  were  amono;  the  last  sioms  of  Ens- 
land  they  had  seen,  —  all  this  was  intelligible.  An  ex- 
cellent little  speech,  which  the  brave  man  had  been 
getting  ready,  perhaps,  as  one  does  a  telegraphic  de- 
spatch, for  the  hours  that  he  had  been  walking  over 
the  floe  to  her.  Then  such  shaking  hands,  such  a 
greeting.  Poor  McClure  could  not  speak  at  first. 
One  of  the  men  at  work  got  the  news  on  board; 
and  up  through  the  hatches  poured  everybody,  sick 
and  well,  to   see   the  black  stranger,  and  to  bear  hi*' 


156     THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  EESOLUTE. 

news  fiom  England.     It  was  nearly  three  years  since 
they  had  seen  any  civilized  man  but  themselves. 

The  28th  of  July,  three  years  before,  Commander 
McClure  had  sent  his  last  despatch  to  the  Admiralty. 
He  had  then  prophesied  just  what  in  three  years  he 
bad  almost  accomplished.  In  the  winter  of  1850  he 
had  discovered  the  Northwest  Passage.  He  had 
come  round  into  one  branch  of  it,  Banks  Straits,  in 
the  next  summer  ;  had  gladly  taken  refuge  on  the 
Bay  of  Mercy  in  a  gale  ;  and  his  ship  had  never  left 
it  since.  Let  it  be  said,  in  passing,  that  most  likely 
she  is  there  now.  In  his  last  despatches  he  had  told  the 
Admiralty  not  to  be  anxious  about  him  if  he  did  not 
arrive  home  before  the  autumn  of  1854.  As  it  proved, 
that  autumn  he  did  come  with  all  his  men,  except  those 
whom  he  had  sent  home  before,  and  those  who  had 
died.  When  Pirn  found  them,  all  the  crew  but  thirty 
were  under  orders  for  marching,  some  to  Baffin's  Bay, 
some  to  the  Mackenzie  River,  on  their  return  to  Eng- 
land. McClure  was  going  to  stay  with  the  rest,  and 
come  home  with  the  ship,  if  they  could ;  if  not,  by 
sledges  to  Port  Leopold,  and  so  by  a  steam-launch 
which  he  had  seen  left  there  for  Franklin  in  1849. 
But  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Pirn  put  an  end  to  all  these 
plans.  We  have  his  long  despatch  to  the  Admiralty 
explaining  them,  finished  only  the  day  before  Pirn  ar- 
rived. It  gives  the  history  of  his  three  years'  exile 
from  the  world,  —  an  exile  crowded  full  of  effective 
work,  —  in  a  record  which  gives  a  noble  picture  of  the 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     157 

man.    The  Queen  has  made  him  Sir  Robert  Le  Mesu 
rier  McClure  since,  in  honor  of  his  great  discovery. 

Banks  Land,  or  Baring  Island,  the  two  names  be- 
long to  the  same  island,  on  the  shores  of  which  Mc- 
Clure and  his  men  had  spent  most  of  these  two  years 
or  more,  is  an  island  on  which  they  were  first  of  civ- 
ilized men  to  land.  For  people  who  are  not  very  par- 
ticular, the  measurement  of  it  which  we  gave  before, 
namely,  that  it  is  about  the  size  and  shape  of  Ireland, 
is  precise  enough.  There  is  high  land  in  the  interior 
probably,  as  the  winds  from  in  shore  are  cold.  The 
crew  found  coal  and  dwarf  willow  which  they  could 
burn  ;  lemmings,  ptarmigan,  hares,  reindeer,  and 
musk-oxen,  which  they  could  eat. 

"  Farewell  to  the  land  where  I  often  have  wended 
My  way  o'er  its  mountains  and  valleys  of  snow  ; 

Farewell  to  the  rocks  and  the  hills  I  've  ascended, 
The  bleak  arctic  homes  of  the  buck  and  the  doe ; 

Farewell  to  the  deep  glens  where  oft  has  resounded 
The  snow-bunting's  song,  as  she  carolled  her  lay 

To  hillside  and  plain,  by  the  green  sorrel  bounded, 
Till  struck  by  the  blast  of  a  cold  winter's  day." 

There  is  a  bit  of  description  of  Banks  Land,  from 
the  anthology  of  that  country,  which,  so  far  as  we 
know,  consists  of  two  poems  by  a  seaman  named  Nel- 
son, one  of  Captain  McClure's  crew.  The  highest 
temperature  ever  observed  on  this  u  gem  of  the  sea  " 
was  53°  in  midsummer.  The  lowest  was  65°  below 
zero  in  January,  1853  ;  that  day  the  thermometer  did 
not  rise  to  80°  below,  that  month  was  never  warmer 


158  THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE  RESOLUTE. 

than  16°  below,  and  the  average  of  the  month  wa9 
48°  below.  A  pleasant  climate  to  spend  three  years 
in  I 

One  day  for  talk  was  all  that  could  be  allowed,  after 
Mr.  Pirn's  amazing  appearance.  On  the  8th  of 
April,  he  and  his  dogs,  and  Captain  McClure  and  a 
party,  were  ready  to  return  to  our  friend  the  "  Reso- 
lute." They  picked  up  Dr.  Domville  on  the  way  ;  he 
had  got  the  broken  sledge  mended,  and  killed  five 
musk-oxen,  against  they  came  along.  He  went  on  in 
the  dog-sledge  to  tell  the  news,  but  McClure  and  his 
men  kept  pace  with  them;  and  he  and  Dr.  Domville 
had  the  telling  of  the  news  together. 

It  was  decided  that  the  "  Investigator  "  should  be 
abandoned,  and  the  "Intrepid"  and  "Resolute  "  made 
room  for  her  men.  Glad  greeting  they  gave  them 
too,  as  British  seamen  can  give.  More  than  half  the 
crews  were  away  when  the  "  Investigator's  "  parties 
came  in,  but  by  July  everybody  had  returned.  They 
had  found  islands  where  the  charts  had  guessed  there 
was  sea,  and  sea  where  they  had  guessed  there  was 
land  ;  had  changed  peninsulas  into  islands  and  isl- 
ands into  peninsulas.  Away  off  beyond  the  seventy 
eighth  parallel,  Mr.  McClintock  had  christened  the  far- 
thest dot  of  land  "  Ireland's  Eye,"  as  if  his  native  island 
were  peering  off  into  the  unknown  there; — a  great 
island,  which  will  be  our  farthest  now,  for  years  to 
come,  had  been  named  "  Prince  Patrick's  Land,"  in 
honor  of  the  baby  prince  who  was  the  youngest  when 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     159 

they  left  home.  Will  he  not  be  tempted,  when  he  ia 
a  man,  to  take  a  crew,  like  another  Madoc,  and,  as 
younger  sons  of  queens  should,  go  and  settle  upon  this 
tempting  god-child  ?  They  had  heard  from  Sir  Ed- 
ward Belcher's  part  of  the  squadron  ;  they  had  heard 
from  England ;  had  heard  of  everything  but  Sir 
John  Franklin.  They  had  even  found  an  ale-bottle 
of  Captain  Collinson's  expedition,  —  but  not  a  stick 
nor  straw  to  show  where  Franklin  or  his  men  had 
lived  or  died.  Two  officers  of  the  "Investigator" 
were  sent  home  to  England  this  summer  by  a  ship 
from  Beechey  Island,  the  head-quarters ;  and  thus 
we  heard,  in  October,  1853,  of  the  discovery  of  the 
Northwest  Passage. 

After  their  crews  were  on  board  again,  and  the 
44  Investigator's "  sixty  stowed  away  also,  the  "Reso- 
lute "  and  "  Intrepid "  had  a  dreary  summer  of  it. 
The  ice  would  not  break  up.  They  had  hunting-par- 
ties on  shore  and  races  on  the  floe  ;  but  the  captain 
could  not  send  the  "  Investigators  "  home  as  he  want- 
ed to,  in  his  steam  tender.  All  his  plans  were  made, 
and  made  on  a  manly  scale,  — if  only  the  ice  would 
open.  He  built  a  storehouse  on  the  island  for  Col- 
linson's people,  or  for  you,  reader,  and  us,  if  we 
should  happen  there,  and  stored  it  well,  and  left  this 
record :  — 

"  This  is  a  house  which  I  have  named  the  '  Sailor's 
Home,'  under  the  especial  patronage  of  my  Lords 
Commissioners  of  the  Admiralty. 


160  THE  LAST    VOYAGE   OF   THE  RESOLUTE. 

u  Here  royal  sailors  and  marines  are  fed,  clothed, 
and  receive  double  pay  for  inhabiting  it." 

In  that  house  is  a  little  of  everything,  and  a  good 
deal  of  victuals  and  drink ;  but  nobody  has  been 
there  since  the  last  of  the  "  Resolute's "  men  came 
away. 

At  last,  the  17th  of  August,  a  day  of  foot-racing 
and  jumping  in  bags  and  wrestling,  all  hands  pres- 
ent, as  at  a  sort  of  "  Isthmian  games,"  ended  with  a 
gale,  a  cracking  up  of  ice,  and  the  u  Investigators  " 
thought  they  were  on  their  way  home,  and  Kellett 
thought  he  was  to  have  a  month  of  summer  yet.  But 
no ;  "  there  is  nothing  certain  in  this  navigation 
from  one  hour  to  the  next."  The  "  Resolute  "  and 
"  Intrepid  "  were  never  really  free  of  ice  all  that  au- 
tumn; drove  and  drifted  to  and  fro  in  Barrow's  Straits 
till  the  12th  of  November  ;  and  then  froze  up,  without 
anchoring,  off  Cape  Cockburn,  perhaps  one  hundred 
and  forty  miles  from  their  harbor  of  the  last  winter. 
The  log-book  of  that  winter  is  a  curious  record  ;  the 
ingenuity  of  the  officer  in  charge  was  well  tasked  to 
make  one  day  differ  from  another.  Each  day  has  the 
first  entry  for  "  ship's  position  "  thus :  "In  the  floe  of? 
Cape  Cockburn."  And  the  blank  for  the  second 
entry,  thus :  "  In  the  same  position."  Lectures,  the- 
atricals, schools,  &c.,  whiled  away  the  time  ;  but  there 
rould  be  no  autumn  travelling  parties,  and  not  much 
hope  for  discovery  in  the  summer. 

Spring  came.     The    captain   went   over  ice  in  his 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     161 

little  dog-sled  to  Beechey  Island,  and  received  his  di- 
rections to  abandon  his  ships.  It  appears  that  he 
would  rather  have  sent  most  of  his  men  forward,  and 
with  a  small  crew  brought  the  "  Resolute  "  home 
that  autumn  or  the  next.  But  Sir  Edward  Belcher 
considered  his  orders  peremptory  "  that  the  safety  of 
the  crews  must  preclude  any  idea  of  extricating  the 
ships."  Both  ships  were  to  be  abandoned.  Two 
distant  travelling  parties  were  away,  one  at  the  "In- 
vestigator," one  looking  for  traces  of  Collinson,  which 
they  found.  Word  was  left  for  them,  at  a  proper 
point,  not  to  seek  the  ship  again,  but  to  come  on  to 
Beechey  Island.  And  at  last,  having  fitted  the 
"  Intrepid's "  engines  so  that  she  could  be  under 
steam  in  two  hours,  having  stored  both  ships  with 
equal  proportions  of  provisions,  and  made  both  vessels 
"  ready  for  occupation,"  the  captain  calked  down  the 
hatches,  and  with  all  the  crew  he  had  not  sent  on 
before,  —  forty-two  persons  in  all, — left  her  Monday, 
the  15th  of  May,  1854,  and  started  with  the  sledges 
for  Beechey  Island. 

Poor  old  "  Resolute  "  !  All  this  gay  company  is  gone 
who  have  made  her  sides  split  with  their  laughter. 
Here  is  Harlequin's  dress,  lying  in  one  of  the  ward- 
rooms, but  there  is  nobody  to  dance  Harlequin's 
dances.  ;t  Here  is  a  lovely  clear  day,  —  surely  to-da 
they  will  come  on  deck  and  take  a  meridian  ! "  No, 
nobody  comes.  The  sun  grows  hot  on  the  decks ; 
but  it   is   all   one,   nobody   looks   at   the  therm ome- 


162  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

ter  !  "  And  so  the  poor  ship  was  left  all  alone."  Such 
gay  times  she  has  had  with  all  these  brave  young  men 
on  board !  Such  merry  winters,  such  a  lightsome 
summer!  So  much  fun,  so  much  nonsense  !  Sc 
much  science  and  wisdom,  and  now  it  is  all  so  still ! 
Is  the  poor  "  Resolute  "  conscious  of  the  change  ?  Does 
she  miss  the  races  on  the  ice,  the  scientific  lecture 
every  Tuesday,  the  occasional  racket  and  bustle  of 
the  theatre,  and  the  worship  of  every  Sunday  ?  Has 
not  she  shared  the  hope  of  Captain  Kellett,  of  Mc- 
Clure,  and  of  the  crew,  that  she  may  break  out  well  I 
She  sees  the  last  sledge  leave  her.  The  captain  drives 
off  his  six  dogs,  —  vanishes  over  the  ice,  and  they  are 
all  gone  "  Will  they  not  come  back  again  ?  "  says 
the  poor  ship.  And  she  looks  wistfully  across  the  ice 
to  her  little  friend  the  steam  tender  "  Intrepid,"  and  she 
3ees  there  is  no  one  there.  "  Intrepid  !  Intrepid ! 
nave  they  really  deserted  us  ?  We  have  served  them  so 
well,  and  have  they  really  left  us  alone  ?  A  great 
many  were  away  travelling  last  year,  but  they  came 
home.  Will  not  any  of  these  come  home  now?" 
No,  poor '  •  Resolute  " !  Not  one  of  them  ever  came  back 
again  !  Not  one  of  them  meant  to.  Summer  came. 
August  came.  No  one  can  tell  how  soon,  but  somr 
day  or  other  this  her  icy  prison  broke  up,  and  the 
good  ship  found  herself  on  her  own  element  again ; 
shook  herself  proudly,  we  cannot  doubt,  nodded  joy- 
fully across  to  the  "  Intrepid,"  and  was  free.  But 
alas !  there  was  no  master  to  take  latitude  and  longi- 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     103 

tude,  no  helmsman  at  the  wheel.  In  clear  letters 
cast  in  brass  over  her  helm  there  are  these  words, 
"  England  expects  each  man  to  do  his  duty."  But 
here  is  no  man  to  heed  the  warning,  and  the  rudder 
flaps  this  way  and  that  way,  no  longer  directing  her 
course,  but  stupidly  swinging  to  and  fro.  And  she 
drifts  here  and  there,  —  drifts  out  of  sicfnt  of  her  little 
consort,  —  strands  on  a  bit  of  ice  floe  now,  and  then 
is  swept  off  from  it,  —  and  finds  herself,  without  even 
the  "Intrepid's"  company,  alone  on  these  blue  seas  with 
those  white  shores.  But  what  utter  loneliness  !  Poor 
"  Resolute  "  !  She  longed  for  freedom,  —  but  what  is 
freedom  where  there  is  no  law?  What  is  freedom 
without  a  helmsman  !  And  the  "  Resolute  "  looks  back 
so  sadly  to  the  old  days  when  she  had  a  master.  And 
the  short  bright  summer  passes.  And  again  she  s^es 
the  sun  set  from  her  decks.  And  now  even  her  top 
masts  see  it  set.  And  now  it  does  not  rise  to  her 
deck.  And  the  next  day  it  does  not  rise  to  her  top- 
mast. Winter  and  night  together  !  She  has  known 
them  before  !  But  now  it  is  winter  and  night  and 
loneliness  all  together.  This  horrid  ice  closes  up  round 
her  again.  And  there  is  no  one  to  bring  her  into  har- 
bor, —  she  is  out  in  the  open  sound.  If  the  ice  drifts 
west,  she  must  go  west.  If  it  goes  east,  she  must  go 
east.  Her  seeming  freedom  is  over,  and  for  that 
long  winter  she  is  chained  again.  But  her  heart  ia 
true  to  old  England.  And  when  she  can  go  east,  she 
is  so  happy !  and  when  she  must  go  west,  she  is  so  sad  ! 


164  THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE. 

Eastward  she  does  go !  Southward  she  does  go ! 
True  to  the  instinct  which  sends  us  all  home,  she  tracks 
undirected  and  without  a  sail  fifteen  hundred  miles  of 
that  sea,  without  a  beacon,  which  separates  her  from 
her  own.  And  so  goes  a  dismal  year.  "  Perhaps  an- 
other spring  they  will  come  and  find  me  out,  and  fix 
things  below.  It  is  getting  dreadfully  damp  down 
there ;  and  I  cannot  keep  the  guns  bright  and  the 
floors  dry."  No,  good  old  "  Resolute."  May  and 
June  pass  off  the  next  year,  and  nobody  comes ; 
and  here  you  are  all  alone  out  in  the  bay,  drifting  in 
this  dismal  pack.  July  and  August,  —  the  days  are 
growing  shorter  again.  u  Will  nobody  come  and  take 
care  of  me,  and  cut  off  these  horrid  blocks  of  ice,  and 
see  to  these  sides  of  bacon  in  the  hold,  and  all  these 
mouldy  sails,  and  this  powder,  and  the  bread  and  the 
spirit  that  I  have  kept  for  them  so  well?  It  is  Sep- 
tember, and  the  sun  begins  to  set  again.  And  here  is 
another  of  those  awful  gales.  Will  it  be  my  very  last  ? 
I  all  alone  here,  —  who  have  done  so  much,  —  and  if 
they  would  only  take  care  of  me  I  can  do  so  much 
more.  Will  nobody  come  ?  Nobody?  ....  What! 
Is  it  ice  blink,  —  are  my  poor  old  lookouts  blind  ?  Is 
not  there  the  '  Intrepid '  ?  Dear  '  Intrepid,'  I  will 
never  look  down  on  you  again  !  No !  there  is  no 
smoke-stack,  it  is  not  the  '  Intrepid.'  But  it  is  some- 
body. Pray  see  me,  good  somebody.  Are  you  a 
Yankee  whaler  ?  I  am  glad  to  see  the  Yankee  whalers, 
I   remember    the   Yankee   whalers    very   pleasantly, 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OF  THE  RESOLUTE.     165 

We  had  a  happy  summer  together  once It  will 

be  dreadful  if  they  do  not  see  me  !  But  this  ice,  thia 
wretched  ice  !  They  do  see  me,  —  I  know  they  see 
me,  but  they  cannot  get  at  me.  Do  not  go  away,  good 
Yankees  ;  pray  come  and  help  me.     I  know  I  can  get 

out,   if  you  will  help   a  little But  now  it  is  a 

whole  week  and  they  do  not  come !  Are  there  any 
Yankees,  or  am  I  getting  crazy  ?     I  have  heard  them 

talk   of  crazy  old  ships,  in  my  young  days No ! 

I  am  not  crazy.  They  are  coming  !  they  are  coming. 
Brave  Yankees !  over  the  hummocks,  down  into  the 
sludge.  Do  not  give  it  up  for  the  cold.  There  is 
coal  below,  and  we  will  have  a  fire  in  the  Sylvester, 

and  in  the  captain's  cabin There  is  a  horrid  lane 

of  water.  They  have  not  got  a  Halkett.  O,  if  one 
of  these  boats  of  mine  would  only  start  for  them,  in- 
stead of  lying  so  stupidly  on  my  deck  here  !  But  the 
men  are  not  afraid  of  water !  See  them  ferry  over  on 
that  ice  block  !  Come  on,  good  friends  !  Welcome, 
whoever  you  be,  —  Dane,  Dutch,  French,  or  Yankee, 
come  on  !  come  on !  It  is  coming  up  a  gale,  but  I 
can  bear  a  gale.  Up  the  side,  men.  I  wish  I  could 
let  down  the  gangway  alone.  But  here  are  all  these 
blocks  of  ice  piled  up,  —  you  can  scramble  over  them  I 
Why  do  you  stop  ?  Do  not  be  afraid.  I  will  maks 
you  very  comfortable  and  jolly.  Do  not  stay  talking 
there.  Pray  come  in.  There  is  port  in  the  captain's 
cabin,  and  a  little  preserved  meat  in  the  pantry. 
You  must  be  hungry ;  pray  come  in  !     O,  he  is  com- 


166  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF  THE  RESOLUTE. 

ing,  and  now  all  four  are  coming.  It  would  be 
dreadful  if  they  had  gone  back !  They  are  on  deck. 
Now  I  shall  go  home  !     How  lonely  it  has  been  ! " 

It  was  true  enough  that  when  Mr.  Quail,  the  brother 
of  the  captain  of  the  "  McLellan,"  whom  the  "  Reso- 
lute "  had  befriended,  the  mate  of  the  George  Henry, 
whaler,  whose  master,  Captain  Buddington,  had  dis 
covered  the  "  Resolute"  in  the  ice,  came  to  her  after  a 
hard  day's  journey  with  his  men,  the  men  faltered  with 
a  little  superstitious  feeling,  and  hesitated  for  a  minute 
about  going  on  board.  But  the  poor  lonely  ship  wooed 
them  too  lovingly,  and  they  climbed  over  the  broken 
ice  and  came  on  deck.  She  was  lying  over  on  her 
larboard  side,  with  a  heavy  weight  of  ice  holding  her 
down.  Hatches  and  companion  were  made  fast,  as 
Captain  Kellett  had  left  them.  But,  knocking  open 
the  companion,  groping  down  stairs  to  the  after  cabin 
they  found  their  way  to  the  captain's  table  ;  somebody 
put  his  hand  on  a  box  of  lucifers,  struck  a  light,  and 
revealed  —  books  scattered  in  confusion,  a  candle 
standing,  which  he  lighted  at  once,  the  glasses  and 
the  decanters  from  which  Kellett  and  his  officers 
had  drunk  good  by  to  the  vessel.  The  whalemen 
filled  them  again,  and  undoubtedly  felt  less  discouraged. 
Meanwhile  night  came  on,  and  a  gale  arose.  So  hard 
did  it  blow,  that  for  two  days  these  four  were  the  whole 
crew  of  the  "  Resolute,"  and  it  was  not  till  the  19th  of 
September  that  they  returned  to  their  own  ship,  and 
reported  what  their  prize  was. 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     167 

All  these  ten  days,  since  Captain  Buddington  had 
first  seen  her,  the  vessels  had  been  nearing  each  other. 
On  the  19th  he  boarded  her  himself;  found  that  in 
her  hold,  on  the  larboard  side,  was  a  good  deal  of  ice ; 
TCP  the  starboard  side  there  seemed  to  be  water.  In 
fact,  her  tanks  had  burst  from  the  extreme  cold  ;  and 
she  was  full  of  water,  nearly  to  her  lower  deck. 
Everything  that  could  move  from  its  place  had  moved  ; 
everything  was  wet ;  everything  that  would  mould 
was  mouldy.  "  A  sort  of  perspiration  "  settled  on  the 
beams  above.  Clothes  were  wringing  wet.  The  cap- 
tain's party  made  a  fire  in  Captain  Kellett's  stove,  and 
soon  started  a  sort  of  shower  from  the  vapor  with 
which  it  filled  the  air.  The  "  Resolute  "  has,  how- 
ever, four  fine  force-pumps.  For  three  days  the  cap- 
tain and  six  men  worked  fourteen  hours  a  day  on  one 
of  these,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  finding  that  they 
freed  her  of  water,  —  that  she  was  tight  still.  They 
cut  away  upon  the  masses  of  ice  ;  and  on  the  23d  of 
September,  in  the  evening,  she  freed  herself  from  her 
encumbrances,  and  took  an  even  keel.  This  was  off 
the  west  shore  of  Baffin's  Bay,  in  latitude  67°.  On 
the  shortest  tack  she  was  twelve  hundred  miles  from 
where  Captain  Kellett  left  her. 

There  was  work  enough  still  to  be  done.  The  rud- 
der was  to  be  shipped,  the  rigging  to  be  made  taut, 
sail  to  be  set ;  and  it  proved,  by  the  way,  that  the  sail 
on  the  yards  was  much  of  it  still  serviceable,  while 
a  suit  of  new  linen  sails  below  were  greatly  injured  by 


168  THE   LAST   VOYAGE   OF   THE   RESOLUTE- 

moisture.  In  a  week  more  they  had  her  ready  to 
make  sail.  The  pack  of  ice  still  drifted  wHh  both 
ships ;  but  on  the  21st  of  October,  after  a  long  north- 
west gale,  the  "  Resolute  "  was  free,  —  more  free  than 
she  had  been  for  more  than  two  years. 

Her  "  last  voyage  "  is  almost  told.  Captain  Bud- 
dington  had  resolved  to  bring  her  home.  lie  had 
picked  ten  men  from  the  "  George  Henry,"  leaving  her 
fifteen,  and  with  a  rough  tracing  of  the  American 
coast  drawn  on  a  sheet  of  foolscap,  with  his  lever 
watch  and  a  quadrant  for  his  instruments,  he  squared 
off  for  New  London.  A  rough,  hard  passage  they  had 
of  it.  The  ship's  ballast  was  gone,  by  the  bursting  of 
the  tanks ;  she  was  top-heavy  and  under  manned.  He 
spoke  a  British  whaling  bark,  and  by  her  sent  to 
Captain  Kellett  his  epaulettes,  and  to  his  own  owners 
news  that  he  was  coming.  They  had  heavy  gales 
and  head  winds,  were  driven  as  far  down  as  the  Ber- 
mudas ;  the  water  left  in  the  ship's  tanks  was  brack- 
ish, and  it  needed  all  the  seasoning  which  the  ship's 
chocolate  would  give  to  make  it  drinkable.  "  For 
sixty  hours  at  a  time,"  says  the  spirited  captain,  "  I 
frequently  had  no  sleep  "  ;  but  his  perseverance  was 
crowned  with  success  at  last,  and  on  the  night  of  the 
23d -24th  of  December  he  made  the  light  off  the 
magnificent  harbor  from  which  he  sailed ;  and  on  Sun- 
day morning,  the  24th,  dropped  anchor  in  the  Thames, 
opposite  New  London,  ran  up  the  royal  ensign  on  the 
shorn  masts  of    the  "  Resolute,"  and  the  good  people 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     169 

of  tlie  town  knew  that  he  and  his  were  safe,  and  thai 
one  of  the  victories  of  peace  was  won. 

As  the  fine  ship  lies  opposite  the  piers  of  that 
beautiful  town,  she  attracts  visitors  from  everywhere, 
and  is,  indeed,  a  very  remarkable  curiosity.  Seals 
were  at  once  placed,  and  very  properly,  on  the  cap- 
tain's book-cases,  lockers,  and  drawers,  and  wherever 
private  property  might  be  injured  by  wanton  curiosity, 
and  two  keepers  are  on  duty  on  the  vessel,  till  her 
destination  is  decided.  But  nothing  is  changed  from 
what  she  was  when  she  came  into  harbor.  And,  from 
stem  to  stern,  every  detail  of  her  equipment  is  a 
curiosity,  to  the  sailor  or  to  the  landsman.  The 
candlestick  in  the  cabin  is  not  like  a  Yankee  candle- 
stick. The  hawse  hole  for  the  chain  cable  is  fitted  aa 
lias  not  been  seen  before.  And  so  of  everything  be- 
tween. There  is  the  aspect  of  wet  over  every- 
thing now,  after  months  of  ventilation  ;  —  the  rifles, 
which  were  last  fired  at  musk-oxen  in  Melville  Island, 
are  red  with  rust,  as  if  they  had  lain  in  the  bottom  of 
the  sea ;  the  volume  of  Shakespeare,  which  you  find 
in  an  officer's  berth,  has  a  damp  feel,  as  if  you  had 
been  reading  it  in  the  open  air  in  a  March  north 
easter.  The  old  seamen  look  with  most  amazement, 
perhaps,  on  the  preparations  for  amusement,  —  the 
juggler's  cups  and  balls,  or  Harlequin's  spangled 
dress ;  the  quiet  landsman  wonders  at  the  gigantic 
ice-saws,  at  the  cast-off  canvas  boots,  the  long  thick 
Arctic  stockings.     It  seems  almost  wrong  to  go  into 

8 


170  THE  LAST   VOYAGE   OF  THE   RESOLUTE. 

Mr.  Hamilton's  wardroom,  and  see  how  he  arranged 
his  soap-cup  and  his  tooth-brush  ;  and  one  does  not  tell 
of  it,  if  he  finds  on  a  blank  leaf  the  secret  prayer  a 
sister  wrote  down  for  the  brother  to  whom  she  gave  a 
prayer-book.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  disorder  now, — 
thanks  to  her  sudden  abandonment,  and  perhaps  to 
her  three  months'  voyage  home.  A  little  union-jack 
lies  over  a  heap  of  umnended  and  unwashed  under- 
clothes ;  when  Kellett  left  the  ship,  he  left  his  coun- 
try's flag  over  his  arm-chair  as  if  to  keep  possession. 
Two  officers'  swords  and  a  pair  of  epaulettes  were  on 
the  cabin  table.  Indeed,  what  is  there  not  there,  — 
which  should  make  an  Arctic  winter  endurable, — 
make  a  long  night  into  day,  —  or  while  long  days 
away? 

The  ship  is  stanch  and  sound.  The  "  last  voyage" 
which  we  have  described  will  not,  let  us  hope,  be  the 
last  voyage  of  her  career.  But  wherever  she  goes, 
under  the  English  flag  or  under  our  own,  she  will 
scarcely  ever  crowd  more  adventure  into  one  cruise 
than  into  that  which  sealed  the  discovery  of  the  North- 
west Passage ;  which  gave  new  lands  to  England, 
nearest  to  the  pole  of  all  she  has ;  which  spent  more 
than  a  year,  no  man  knows  where,  self-governed 
and  unguided ;  and  which,  having  begun  under  the 
strict  regime  of  the  English  navy,  ended  under  the  re- 
markable mutual  rules,  adopted  by  common  consent, 
m  the  business  of  American  whalemen. 

Is  it  not  worth  noting  that  in  this  chivalry  of  Arc- 


THE  LAST  VOYAGE  OP  THE  RESOLUTE.     171 

tic  adventure,  the  ships  which  have  been  wrecked  have 
been  those  of  the  fight  or  horror  ?  They  are  the  u  Fury," 
the  "Victory,"  the  "  Erebus,"  the  "  Terror."  But  the 
ships  which  never  failed  their  crews,  —  which,  for  all 
that  man  knows,  are  as  sound  now  as  ever,  —  bear  the 
names  of  peaceful  adventure  ;  the  "  Hecla,"  the  "  En- 
terprise," and  "  Investigator,"  the  "  Assistance  "  and 
"  Resolute,"  the  "  Pioneer  "  and  "  Intrepid,"  and  our 
u  Advance  "  and  "  Rescue  "  and  a  Arctic,"  never 
threatened  any  one,  even  in  their  names.  And  they 
never  failed  the  men  who  commanded  them  or  who 
sailed  in  them. 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME 

ONE  OF  THE  INGHAM  PAPERS. 


[A  Boston  journal,  in  noticing  this  story,  called  it  improbable 
I  think  it  is.  But  I  think  the  moral  important.  It  was  first 
published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  September,  1859.] 


It  is  not  often  that  I  trouble  the  readers  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly.  I  should  not  trouble  them  now, 
but  for  the  importunities  of  my  wife,  who  "  feels 
to  insist  "  that  a  duty  to  society  is  unfulfilled,  till  I 
have  told  why  I  had  to  have  a  double,  and  how  he  un- 
did me.  She  is  sure,  she  says,  that  intelligent  persons 
cannot  understand  that  pressure  upon  public  servants 
which  alone  drives  any  man  into  the  employment  of  a 
double.  And  while  I  fear  she  thinks,  at  the  bottom 
of  her  heart,  that  my  fortunes  will  never  be  remade, 
she  has  a  faint  hope  that,  as  another  Rasselas,  I  may 
teach  a  lesson  to  future  publics,  from  which  they  may 
profit,  though  we  die.  Owing  to  the  behavior  of  my 
double,  or,  if  you  please,  to  that  public  pressure  which 
compelled  me  to  employ  him,  I  have  plenty  of  leisure 
to  write  this  communication. 

I  am,  or  rather  was,  a  minister,  of  the  Sandemanian 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME.     173 

connection.  I  was  settled  in  the  active,  wide-awake 
town  of  Naguadavick,  on  one  of  the  finest  water-powers 
in  Maine.  We  used  to  call  it  a  Western  town  in  the 
heart  of  the  civilization  of  New  England.  A  charm- 
ing place  it  was  and  is.  A  spirited,  brave  young  par 
ish  had  I  ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  we  might  have  all  "the 
joy  of  eventful  living"  to  our  heart's  content. 

Alas  !  how  little  we  knew  on  the  day  of  my  ordina 
tion,  and  in  those  halcyon  moments  of  our  first  house- 
keeping :  To  be  the  confidential  friend  in  a  hundred 
families  in  the  town,  —  cutting  the  social  trifle,  as  my 
friend  Haliburton  says,  "from  the  top  of  the  whipped 
syllabub  to  the  bottom  of  the  sponge-cake,  which  is 
the  foundation,"  —  to  keep  abreast  of  the  thought  of 
the  age  in  one's  study,  and  to  do  one's  best  on  Sunday  to 
interweave  that  thought  with  the  active  life  of  an  ac- 
tive town,  and  to  inspirit  both  and  make  both  infinite 
by  glimpses  of  the  Eternal  Glory,  seemed  such  an  ex- 
quisite forelook  into  one's  life  !  Enough  to  do,  and  al] 
so  real  and  so  grand !  If  this  vision  could  only  have 
lasted  ! 

The  truth  is,  that  this  vision  was  not  in  itself  a  de- 
lusion, nor,  indeed,  half  bright  enough.  .If  one  could 
only  have  been  left  to  do  his  own  business,  the  vision 
would  have  accomplished  itself  and  brought  out  new 
paraheliacal  visions,  each  as  bright  as  the  original, 
The  misery  was  and  is,  as  we  found  out,  I  and  Polly, 
before  long,  that  besides  the  vision,  and  besides  the 
usual  human  and  finite  failures  in  life  (such  as  break- 


174  MY   DOUBLE,   AND  HOW  HE  UNDID   ME 

ing  the  old  pitcher  that  came  over  in  the  "Mayflower/' 
and  putting  into  the  fire  the  Alpenstock  with  which 
her  father  climbed  Mont  Blanc), — besides  these,  I  say 
(imitating  the  style  of  Robinson  Crusoe),  there  were 
pitchforked  in  on  us  a  great  rowen-heap  of  hum- 
bugs, handed  down  from  some  unknown  seed-time,  in 
which  we  were  expected,  and  I  chiefly,  to  fulfil  certain 
public  functions  before  the  community,  of  the  character 
of  those  fulfilled  by  the  third  row  of  supernumeraries 
who  stand  behind  the  Sepoys  in  the  spectacle  of  the 
"  Cataract  of  the  Ganges."  They  were  the  duties, 
in  a  word,  which  one  performs  as  member  of  one  or 
another  social  class  or  subdivision,  wholly  distinct  from 
what  one  does  as  A.  by  himself  A.  What  invisible 
power  put  these  functions  on  me,  it  would  be  very 
hard  to  tell.  But  such  power  there  was  and  is.  And 
I  had  not  been  at  work  a  year  before  I  found  I  was 
living  two  lives,  one  real  and  one  merely  functional, 
—  for  two  sets  of  people,  one  my  parish,  whom  I 
loved,  and  the  other  a  vague  public,  for  whom  I  did 
not  care  two  straws.  All  this  was  in  a  vague  notion, 
which  everybody  had  and  has,  that  this  second  life 
would  eventually  bring  out  some  great  results,  un- 
known at  present,  to  somebody  somewhere. 

Crazed  by  this  duality  of  life,  I  first  read  Dr.  Wigan 
on  the  "Duality  of  the  Brain,"  hoping  that  I  could 
train  one  side  of  my  head  to  do  these  outside  jobs,  and 
the  other  to  do  my  intimate  and  real  duties.  For 
Richard  Greenough  once   told  me,  that,  in   studying 


MY   DOUBLE,  AND    HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  17& 

for  the  statue  of  Franklin,  he  found  that  the  left  side 
of  the  great  man's  face  was  philosophic  and  reflective, 
and  the  right  side  funny  and  smiling.  If  you  will  go 
and  look  at  the  bronze  statue,  you  will  find  he  has  re- 
peated this  observation  there  for  posterity.  The  east- 
ern profile  is  the  portrait  of  the  statesman  Franklin,  the 
western  of  poor  Richard.  But  Dr.  Wigan  does  not  go 
into  these  niceties  of  this  subject,  and  I  failed.  It  was 
then  that,  on  my  wife's  suggestion,  I  resolved  to  look 
out  for  a  Double. 

I  was,  at  first,  singularly  successful.  We  happened 
to  be  recreating  at  Stafford  Springs  that  summer. 
We  rode  out  one  day,  for  one  of  the  relaxations  of 
that  watering-place,  to  the  great  Monson  Poorhouse. 
We  were  passing  through  one  of  the  large  halls,  when 
my  destiny  was  fulfilled  ! 

He  wras  not  shaven.  He  had  on  no  spectacles. 
He  was  dressed  in  a  green  baize  roundabout  and  faded 
blue  overalls,  worn  sadly  at  the  knee.  But  I  saw  at 
once  that  he  was  of  my  height,  five  feet  four  and  a  half. 
He  had  black  hair,  worn  off  by  his  hat.  So  have  and 
have  not  I.  He  stooped  in  walking.  So  do  I.  His 
hands  were  large,  and  mine.  And  —  choicest  gift  of 
Fate  in  all  —  he  had,  not  a  a  strawberry-mark  on  his 
left  arm,"  but  a  cut  from  a  juvenile  brickbat  over  hia 
right  eye,  slightly  affecting  the  play  of  that  eyebrow. 
Reader,  so  have  I !     My  fate  was  sealed  ! 

A  word  with  Mr.  Holley,  one  of  the  inspectors,  set- 
tled  the  whole    thing.     It   proved    that  this  Dennis 


176  MT  DOUBLE,   AND   HOW   HE   UNDID  ME. 

Shea  was  a  harmless,  amiable  fellow,  of  the  class  known 
as  shiftless,  who  had  sealed  his  fate  by  marrying  a 
dumb  wife,  who  was  at  that  moment  ironing  in  the 
laundry.  Before  I  left  Stafford,  I  had  hired  both  for 
five  years.  We  had  applied  to  Judge  Pynchon,  then 
the  probate  judge  at  Springfield,  to  change  the  name 
of  Dennis  Shea  to  Frederic  Ingham.  We  had  ex- 
plained  to  the  Judge,  what  was  the  precise  truth,  that 
an  eccentric  gentleman  wished  to  adopt  Dennis,  under 
this  new  name,  into  his  family.  It  never  occurred  to 
him  that  Dennis  might  be  more  than  fourteen  years 
old.  And  thus,  to  shorten  this  preface,  when  we 
returned  at  night  to  my  parsonage  at  Naguadavick, 
there  entered  Mrs.  Ingham,  her  new  dumb  laundress, 
myself,  who  am  Mr.  Frederic  Ingham,  and  my  double, 
who  was  Mr.  Frederic  Ingham  by  as  good  right  as  I. 
O  the  fun  we  had  the  next  morning  in  shaving  his 
beard  to  my  pattern,  cutting  his  hair  to  match  mine, 
and  teaching  him  how  to  wear  and  how  to  take  off 
gold-bowed  spectacles  !  Really,  they  were  electro-plate, 
and  the  glass  was  plain  (for  the  poor  fellow's  eyes 
were  excellent).  Then  in  four  successive  afternoons 
I  taught  him  four  speeches.  I  had  found  these  would 
be  quite  enough  for  the  supernumerary- Sepoy  line  of 
life,  and  it  was  well  for  me  they  were  ;  for  though 
he  was  good-natured,  he  was  very  shiftless,  and  it 
was,  as  our  national  proverb  says,  "  like  pulling  teeth  " 
to  teach  him.  But  at  the  end  of  the  next  week  he 
could  say,  with  quite  my  easy  and  frisky  air,- — 


MY   DOUBLE,  AND    HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  177 

1.  "  Very  well,  thank  you.     And  you  ?  "     This  for 
u  answer  to  casual  salutations. 

2.  "  I  am  very  glad  you  liked  it." 

3.  "  There  has  been  so  much  said,  and,  on  the  whole, 
so  well  said,  that  I  will  not  occupy  the  time/' 

4.  "I  agree,  in  general,  with  my  friend  the  other 
side  of  the  room." 

At  first  I  had  a  feeling  that  I  was  going  to  be  at 
great  cost  for  clothing  him.  But  it  proved,  of  course, 
at  once,  that,  whenever  he  was  out,  I  should  be  at 
home.  And  I  went,  during  the  bright  period  of  his 
success,  to  so  few  of  those  awful  pageants  which  re- 
quire a  black  dress-coat  and  what  the  ungodly  call, 
after  Mr.  Dickens,  a  white  choker,  that  in  the  happy 
retreat  of  my  own  dressing-gowns  and  jackets  my  days 
went  by  as  happily  and  cheaply  as  those  of  another 
Thalaba.  And  Polly  declares  there  was  never  a  year 
when  the  tailoring  cost  so  little.  He  lived  (Dennis, 
not  Thalaba)  in  his  wife's  room  over  the  kitchen.  He 
had  orders  never  to  show  himself  at  that  window. 
When  he  appeared  in  the  front  of  the  house,  I  retired 
to  my  sanctissimum  and  my  dressing-gown.  In  short, 
the  Dutchman  and  his  wife,  in  the  old  weather-box, 
had  not  less  to  do  with  each  other  than  he  and  I.  He 
made  the  furnace-fire  and  split  the  wood  before  day- 
light; then  he  went  to  sleep  again,  and  slept  late; 
then  came  for  orders,  with  a  red  silk  bandanna  tied 
round  his  head,  with  his  overalls  on,  and  his  dress- 
coat  and  spectacles  off.     If  we  happened  to  be  inter* 

8* 


178     MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME. 

ruptei,  no  one  guessed  that  he  was  Frederic  Ingham 
as  well  as  I ;  and,  in  the  neighborhood,  there  grew  up 
an  impression  that  the  minister's  Irishman  worked  day- 
times in  the  factory- village  at  New  Coventry.  After 
I  had  given  him  his  orders,  I  never  saw  him  till  the 
next  day. 

I  launched  him  by  sending  him  to  a  meeting  of  the 
Enlightenment    Board.       The    Enlightenment    Board 
consists  of  seventy-four  members,  of  whom  sixty-seven 
are  necessary  to  form  a  quorum.     One  becomes  a  mem- 
ber  under   the  regulations  laid   down    in   old  Judge 
Dudley's  will.     I  became  one  by  being  ordained  pastor 
of  a  church  in  Naguadavick.    You  see  you  cannot  help 
yourself,  if  you  would.     At  this  particular  time  we 
had  had  four  successive  meetings,  averaging  four  hours 
each,  —  wholly   occupied  in   whipping  in   a  quorum. 
At  the   first  only  eleven  men  were  present ;  at  the 
next,  by  force  of  three  circulars,  twenty-seven ;  at  the 
third,  thanks  to  two  days'  canvassing  by  Auchmuty 
and   myself,  begging   men    to    come,   we    had    sixty. 
Half  the   others  were    in    Europe.      But  without   a 
quorum  we  could  do  nothing.     All  the  rest  of  us  waited 
grimly  for  our  four  hours,  and  adjourned  without  any 
action,     At  the  fourth  meeting  we  had  flagged,  and 
only  got  fifty-nine  together.     But  on  the  first  appear- 
ance of  my  double,  —  whom  I  sent  on  this  fatal  Mon- 
day to  the  fifth  meeting,  —  he  was  the  sixty-seventh 
man  who  entered  the  room.     He  was  greeted  with  a 
storm  of  applause  !     The  poor  fellow  had  missed  his 


MY   DOUBLE,  AND    HOW    HE    UNDID   ME.  179 

«vay,  —  read  the  street  signs  ill  through  his  spectacles 
(very  ill,  in  fact,  without  them),  —  and  had  not  dared 
to  inquire.  He  entered  the  room,  —  finding  the  pres- 
ident and  secretary  holding  to  their  chairs  two  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  who  were  also  members  ex 
officio,  and  were  begging  leave  to  go  away.  On  his 
entrance  all  was  changed.  Presto,  the  by-laws  were 
suspended,  and  the  Western  property  was  given  away. 
Nobody  stopped  to  converse  with  him.  He  voted,  as 
I  had  charged  him  to  do,  in  every  instance,  with  the 
minority.  I  won  new  laurels  as  a  man  of  sense,  though 
a  little  unpunctual,  —  and  Dennis,  alias  Ingham,  re- 
turned to  the  parsonage,  astonished  to  see  with  how 
little  wisdom  the  world  is  governed.  He  cut  a  few  of 
my  parishioners  in  the  street ;  but  he  had  his  glasses 
off,  and  I  am  known  to  be  near-sighted.  Eventually 
he  recognized  them  more  readily  than  I. 

I  u  set  him  again  "  at  the  exhibition  of  the  New 
Coventry  Academy  ;  and  here  he  undertook  a  "  speak- 
ing part,"  —  as,  in  my  boyish,  worldly  days,  I  remem- 
ber the  bills  used  to  say  of  Mile.  Celeste.  We  are  all 
trustees  of  the  New  Coventry  Academy ;  and  there 
has  lately  been  "  a  good  deal  of  feeling  "  because  the 
Sandemanian  trustees  did  not  regularly  attend  the  ex- 
hibitions. It  has  been  intimated,  indeed,  that  the  San- 
demanians  are  leaning  towards  Free- Will,  and  that  we 
have,  therefore,  neglected  these  semiannual  exhibi 
tions,  while  there  is  no  doubt  that  Auchmuty  last  yeai 
we'ntto  Commencement  at  Waterville.     Now  the  head 


180  MY   DOUBLE,   AND   HOW  HE   UNDID   ME. 

master  at  New  Coventry  is  a  real  good  fellow,  who 
knows  a  Sanskrit  root  when  he  sees  it,  and  often  cracks 
etymologies  with  me,  —  so  that,  in  strictness,  I  ought  to 
go  to  their  exhibitions.  But  think,  reader,  of  sitting 
through  three  long  July  days  in  that  Academy  chapel, 
following  the  programme  from 

Tuesday  Morning.     English  Composition.    "  Sunshine."    Miss 
Jones. 

round  to 

Trio  on    Three  Pianos.     Duel  from   the   Opera  of  "  Midshipmai. 
Easy."     Marryat. 

coming  in  at  nine,  Thursday  evening  !  Think  of  this, 
reader,  for  men  who  know  the  world  is  trying  to  go 
backward,  and  who  would  give  their  lives  if  they  could 
help  it  on  !  Well !  The  double  had  succeeded  so 
well  at  the  Board,  that  I  sent  him  to  the  Academy. 
(Shade  of  Plato,  pardon  !)  He  arrived  early  on 
Tuesday,  when,  indeed,  few  but  mothers  and  clergy- 
men are  generally  expected,  and  returned  in  the  even 
ing  to  us,  covered  with  honors.  He  had  dined  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  chairman,  and  he  spoke  in  high 
terms  of  the  repast.  The  chairman  had  expressed  his 
interest  in  the  French  conversation.  "  I  am  very  glad 
you  liked  it,"  said  Dennis  ;  and  the  poor  chairman, 
abashed,  supposed  the  accent  had  been  wrong.  At  the 
end  of  the  day,  the  gentlemen  present  had  been  called 
upon  for  speeches,  —  the  Rev.  Frederic  Ingham  first, 
as  it  happened ;  upon  which  Dennis  had  risen,  an<. 


MY    DOUBLE,  AND    HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  181 

had  said,  "  There  has  been  so  much  said,  and,  on  the 
whole t  so  well  said,  that  I  will  not  occupy  the  time." 
The  girls  were  delighted,  because  Dr.  Dabney,  the 
year  before,  had  given  them  at  this  occasion  a  scolding 
on  impropriety  of  behavior  at  Lyceum  lectures.  They 
all  declared  Mr.  Ingham  was  a  love,  —  and  so  hand- 
some !  (Dennis  is  good-looking.)  Three  of  them, 
with  arms  behind  the  others'  waists,  followed  him  up 
to  the  wagon  he  rode  home  in ;  and  a  little  girl  with 
a  blue  sash  had  been  sent  to  give  him  a  rosebud. 
After  this  debut  in  speaking,  he  went  to  the  exhibition 
for  two  days  more,  to  the  mutual  satisfaction  of  all 
concerned.  Indeed,  Polly  reported  that  he  had  pro- 
nounced the  trustees'  dinners  of  a  higher  grade  than 
those  of  the  parsonage.  When  the  next  term  began, 
I  found  six  of  the  Academy  girls  had  obtained  per- 
mission to  come  across  the  river  and  attend  our  church. 
But  this  arrangement  did  not  long  continue. 

After  this  he  went  to  several  Commencements  for 
me,  and  ate  the  dinners  provided ;  he  sat  through 
three  of  our  Quarterly  Conventions  for  me,  —  always 
voting  judiciously,  by  the  simple  rule  mentioned  above, 
of  siding  with  the  minority.  And  I,  meanwhile,  who 
had  before  been  losing  caste  among  my  friends,  as 
holding  myself  aloof  from  the  associations  of  the  body, 
began  to  rise  in  everybody's  favor.  "  Ingham  's  a 
good  fellow,  —  always  on  hand  "  ;  "  never  talks  much, 
but  does  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time  "  ;  "  is  not 
as  unpunctual  as  he  used  to  be,  — he  comes  carlv,  and 


182  MY  DOUBLE,   AND   HOW  HE  UNDID   ME. 

sits  through  to  the  end."  "  He  has  got  over  his  old 
talkative  habit,  too.  I  spoke  to  a  friend  of  his  about  it 
once ;  and  I  think  Ingham  took  it  kindly,"  etc.,  etc. 

This  voting  power  of  Dennis  was  particularly  valu- 
able at  the  quarterly  meetings  of  the  proprietors  of  the 
Naguadavick  Ferry.  My  wife  inherited  from  her  father 
some  shares  in  that  enterprise,  which  is  not  yet  fully  de- 
veloped, though  it  doubtless  will  become  a  very  valuable 
property.  The  law  of  Maine  then  forbade  stockholders 
to  appear  by  proxy  at  such  meetings.  Polly  disliked  to 
go,  not  being,  in  fact,  a  "  hens'-rights  hen,"  transferred 
her  stock  to  me.  I,  after  going  once,  disliked  it  more 
than  she.  But  Dennis  went  to  the  next  meeting,  and 
liked  it  very  much.  He  said  the  arm-chairs  were 
good,  the  collation  good,  and  the  free  rides  to  stock- 
holders pleasant.  He  was  a  little  frightened  when 
they  first  took  him  upon  one  of  the  ferry-boats,  but 
after  two  or  three  quarterly  meetings  he  became  quite 
brave. 

Thus  far  I  never  had  any  difficulty  with  him.  In- 
deed, being,  as  I  implied,  of  that  type  which  is  called 
shiftless,  he  was  only  too  happy  to  be  told  daily  what 
to  do,  and  to  be  charged  not  to  be  forthputting  or  in 
any  way  original  in  his  discharge  of  that  duty.  He 
learned,  however,  to  discriminate  between  the  lines  oi 
his  life,  and  very  much  preferred  these  stockholders' 
meetings  and  trustees'  dinners  and  Commencement 
collations  to  another  set  of  occasions,  from  which  he 
used  to  beg  off  most  piteously.     Our  excellent  broth- 


MY    DOUBLE,  AND   HOW    HE   UNDID    ME.  183 

er,  Dr.  Fillmore,  had  taken  a  notion  at  this  time  that 
our  Sandemanian  churches  needed  more  expression  of 
mutual  sympathy.  He  insisted  upon  it  that  we  were 
remiss.  He  said,  that,  if  the  Bishop  came  to  preach 
at  Naguadavick,  all  the  Episcopal  clergy  of  the  neigh- 
borhood were  present ;  if  Dr.  Pond  came,  all  the  Con- 
gregational clergymen  turned  out  to  hear  him  ;  if  Dr. 
Nichols,  all  the  Unitarians  ;  and  he  thought  we  o"wed 
it  to  each  other,  that,  whenever  there  was  an  occa- 
sional service  at  a  Sandemanian  church,  the  other 
brethren  should  all,  if  possible,  attend.  "  It  looked 
well,"  if  nothing  more.  Now  this  really  meant  that 
I  had  not  been  to  hear  one  of  Dr.  Fillmore's  lec- 
tures on  the  Ethnology  of  Religion.  He  forgot  that 
he  did  not  hear  one  of  my  course  on  the  "  Sande 
manianism  of  Anselm."  But  I  felt  badly  when  he 
said  it ;  and  afterwards  I  always  made  Dennis  go  to 
hear  all  the  brethren  preach,  when  I  was  not  preach- 
ing myself.  This  was  what  he  took  exceptions  to,  — 
the  only  thing,  as  I  said,  which  he  ever  did  except 
to.  Now  came  the  advantage  of  his  lono-  morning- 
nap,  and  of  the  green  tea  with  which  Polly  supplied 
the  kitchen.  But  he  would  plead*  so  humbly,  to  be 
let  off,  only  from  one  or  two  !  I  never  excepted  him, 
however.  I  knew  the  lectures  were  of  value,  and  I 
thought  it  best  he  should  be  able  to  keep  the  connec- 
tion. 

Polly  is  more  rash  than  I  am,  as  the  reader  has  ob- 
served in  the  outset  of  this  numoir.     She  risked  Den 


184'  MT   DOUBLE,   AND   HOW  HE   UNDID   ME 

ms  one  night  under  the  eyes  of  her  own  sex.  Gov- 
ernor Gorges  had  always  been  very  kind  to  us,  and, 
when  he  gave  his  great  annual  party  to  the  town,  asked 
ii!5.  I  confess  I  hated  to  go.  I  was  deep  in  the  new 
volume  of  Pfeiffer's  "  Mystics,"  which  Haliburton  had 
just  sent  me  from  Boston.  "  But  how  rude,"  said 
Polly,  "not  to  return  the  Governor's  civility  and  Mrs. 
Gorges's,  when  they  will  be  sure  to  ask  why  you  are 
away  !  "  Still  I  demurred,  and  at  last  she,  with  the 
wit  of  Eve  and  of  Semiramis  conjoined,  let  me  off  by 
saying  that,  if  I  would  go  in  with  her,  and  sustain  the 
initial  conversations  with  the  Governor  and  the  ladies 
staying  there,  she  would  risk  Dennis  for  the  rest  of 
the  evening.  And  that  was  just  what  we  did.  She 
took  Dennis  in  training  all  that  afternoon,  instructed 
him  in  fashionable  conversation,  cautioned  him  against 
the  temptations  of  the  supper-table,  —  and  at  nine  in 
the  evening  he  drove  us  all  down  in  the  carryall.  I 
made  the  grand  star-ew£r<?e  with  Polly  and  the  pretty 
Walton  girls,  who  were  staying  with  us.  We  had  put 
Dennis  into  a  great  rough  top-coat,  without  his  glasses; 
and  the  girls  never  dreamed,  in  the  darkness,  of 
looking  at  him.  He  sat  in  the  carriage,  at  the  door, 
while  we  entered.  I  did  the  agreeable  to  Mrs. 
Gorges,  was  introduced  to  her  niece,  Miss  Fernanda ; 
I  complimented  Judge  Jeffries  on  his  decision  in 
the  great  case  of  D'Aulnay  vs.  Laconia  Mining  Com- 
pany ;  I  stepped  into  the  dressing-room  for  a 
moment,    stepped    out    for    another,     walked    home 


MY    DOUBLE,  AND    HOW    HE   UNDID   ME.  185 

after  a  nod  with  Dennis  and  tying  the  horse  to  a 
pump ;  and  while  I  walked  home,  Mr.  Frederic  Ing- 
ham, my  double,  stepped  in  through  the  library  into  the 
Gorges's  grand  saloon. 

Oh !  Polly  died  of  laughing  as  she  told  me  of  it  at 
midnight!  And  even  here,  where  I  have  to  teach  my 
hands  to  hew  the  beech  for  stakes  to  fence  our  cave, 
she  dies  of  laughing  as  she  recalls  it,  —  and  says  that 
single  occasion  was  worth  all  we  have  paid  for  it. 
Gallant  Eve  that  she  is !  She  joined  Dennis  at  the 
library-door,  and  in  an  instant  presented  him  to  Dr. 
Ochterlony,  from  Baltimore,  who  was  on  a  visit  in  town, 
and  was  talking  with  her  as  Dennis  came  in.  "  Mr. 
Ingham  would  like  to  hear  what  you  were  telling  ua 
about  your  success  among  the  German  population." 
And  Dennis  bowed  and  said,  in  spite  of  a  scowl  from 
Polly,  "  I  'm  very  glad  you  liked  it."  But  Dr.  Och- 
terlony did  not  observe,  and  plunged  into  the  tide  of 
explanation ;  Dennis  listened  like  a  prime-minister, 
and  bowing  like  a  mandarin,  which  is,  I  suppose, 
the  same  thing.  Polly  declared  it  was  just  like  Hali- 
burton's  Latin  conversation  with  the  Hungarian  min- 
ister,  of  which  he  is  very  fond  of  telling.  "  Qucene 
sit  historia  Reformationis  in  Ungarid  ?  "  quoth  Hali- 
burton,  after  some  thought.  And  his  confrere  replied 
gallantly,  u  In  seculo  decimo  tertio"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  ; 
and  from  decimo  tertio*  to  the  nineteenth  century  and 

*  Which  means,  "  In  the  thirteenth  century,"  my  dear  little  bell 
and-coral  reader.  You  have  rightly  guessed  that  the  question  means 
'*  What  is  the  history  of  the  Reformation  in  Hungary ' " 


L8b'  MY   DOUBLE,   AND   HOW   HE  UNDID   ME. 

a  half  lasted  till  the  oysters  came.  So  was  it  that  be- 
fore Dr.  Ochterlony  came  to  the  "  success,"  or  near  it, 
Governor  Gorges  came  to  Dennis,  and  asked  him  to 
hand  Mrs.  Jeffries  down  to  supper,  a  request  which  he 
heard  with  great  joy. 

Polly  was  skipping  round  the  room,  I  guess,  gay  as 
a  lark.  Auchmuty  came  to  her  u  in  pity  for  poor 
Ingham,"  who  was  so  bored  by  the  stupid  pundit, — 
and  Auchmuty  could  not  understand  why  I  stood  it  so 
long.  But  when  Dennis  took  Mrs.  Jeffries  down, 
Polly  could  not  resist  standing  near  them.  He  was  a 
little  flustered,  till  the  sight  of  the  eatables  and  drink- 
ables gave  him  the  same  Mercian  courage  which  it 
gave  Diggory.  A  little  excited  then,  he  attempted 
one  or  two  of  his  speeches  to  the  Judge's  lady.  But 
little  he  knew  how  hard  it  was  to  get  in  even  a  promp- 
tu  there  edgewise.  *'  Very  well,  I  thank  you,"  said 
he,  after  the  eating  elements  were  adjusted ;  "  and 
you  ?  "  And  then  did  not  he  have  to  hear  about  the 
mumps,  and  the  measles,  and  arnica,  and  belladonna, 
and  chamomile-flower,  and  dodecatheon,  till  she 
changed  oysters  for  salad  ;  and  then  about  the  old 
practice  and  the  new,  and  what  her  sister  said,  and 
what  her  sister's  friend  said,  and  what  the  physician 
to  her  sister's  friend  said,  and  then  what  was  said  by 
the  brother  of  the  sister  of  the  physician  of  the  friend 
of  her  sister,  exactly  as  if  it  had  been  in  Ollendorff? 
There  was  a  moment's  pause,  as  she  declined  Cham- 
pagne.    "  I  am  very  glad  you  liked  it,"  said  Dennis 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND    HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  187 

again,  which  he  never  should  have  said  but  to  one 
who  complimented  a  sermon.  "  Oh  !  you  are  so  sharp, 
Mr.  Ingham !  No !  I  never  drink  any  wine  at  all, 
— except  sometimes  in  summer  a  little  currant  shrub, 
—  from  our  own  currants,  you  know.  My  own  moth- 
er, —  that  is,  I  call  her  my  own  mother,  because,  you 
know,  1  do  not  remember,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc. ;  till  they 
came  to  the  candied  orange  at  the  end  of  the  feast, 
when  Dennis,  rather  confused,  thought  he  must  say 
something,  and  tried  No.  4,  —  "I  agree,  in  general, 
with  my  friend  the  other  side  of  the  room,"  —  which 
he  never  should  have  said  but  at  a  public  meeting. 
But  Mrs.  Jeffries,  who  never  listens  expecting  to  un- 
derstand, caught  him  up  instantly  with  "  Well,  I  'm 
sure  my  husband  returns  the  compliment ;  he  always 
agrees  with  you,  —  though  we  do  worship  with  the 
Methodists;  but  you  know,  Mr.  Ingham,"  etc.,  etc., 
etc.,  till  the  move  up-stairs ;  and  as  Dennis  led  her 
through  the  hall,  he  was  scarcely  understood  by  any 
but  Polly,  as  he  said,  "  There  has  been  so  much  said, 
and,  on  the  whole,  so  well  said,  that  I  will  not  occupy 
the  time." 

His  great  resource  the  rest  of  the  evening  was 
standing  in  the  library,  carrying  on  animated  conver- 
sations with  one  and  another  in  much  the  same  way. 
Polly  had  initiated  him  in  the  mysteries  of  a  dis- 
covery of  mine,  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  finish  youi 
sentences  in  a  crowd,  but  by  a  sort  of  mumble, 
omitting  sibilants  and  dentals.     This,  indeed,  if  your 


188  MY  DOUBLE,   AND   HOW   HE  UNDID   ME, 

words  fail  you,  answers  even  in  public  extempore 
speech,  but  better  where  other  talking  is  going  on. 
Thus :  ■*  We  missed  you  at  the  Natural  History  So- 
ciety, Ingham."  Ingham  replies,  "  I  am  very  gli- 
gloglum,  that  is,  that  you  were  mmmram."  By 
gradually  dropping  the  voice,  the  interlocutor  is  com- 
pelled to  supply  the  answer.  "  Mrs.  Ingham,  I  hope 
your  friend  Augusta  is  better."  Augusta  has  not  been 
ill.  Polly  cannot  think  of  explaining,  however,  and 
answers,  "  Thank  you,  Ma'am  ;  she  is  very  reara- 
son  wewahwewoh,"  in  lower  and  lower  tones.  And 
Mrs.  Throckmorton,  who  forgot  the  subject  of  which 
she  spoke  as  soon  as  she  asked  the  question,  is  quite 
satisfied.  Dennis  could  see  into  the  card-room,  and 
came  to  Polly  to  ask  if  he  might  not  go  and  play  all- 
fours.  But,  of  course,  she  sternly  refused.  At  mid- 
night they  came  home  delighted, —  Polly,  as  I  said, 
wild  to  tell  me  the  story  of  the  victory  ;  only  both  the 
pretty  Walton  girls  said,  "  Cousin  Frederic,  you  did 
not  come  near  me  all  the  evening." 

We  always  called  him  Dennis  at  home,  for  con- 
venience, though  his  real  name  was  Frederic  Ingham, 
as  I  have  explained.  When  the  election-day  came 
round,  however,  I  found  that  by  some  accident  there 
was  only  one  Frederic  Ingham's  name  on  the  voting- 
list ;  and  as  I  was  quite  busy  that  day  in  writing  some 
foreign  letters  to  Halle,  I  thought  I  would  forego  my 
privilege  of  suffrage,  and  stay  quietly  at  home,  telling 
Dennis  that  he  might  use  the  record  on  the  voting-list. 


MY    DOUBLE,  AND   HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  189 

and  vote.  I  gave  him  a  ticket,  whicn  1  told  him  he 
might  use,  if  he  liked  to.  That  was  that  very  sharp 
election  in  Maine  which  the  readers  of  the  Atlantic  so 
well  remember,  and  it  had  been  intimated  in  public 
that  the  ministers  would  do  well  not  to  appear  at  the 
polls.  Of  course,  after  that,  we  had  to  appear  by  self 
or  proxy.  Still,  Naguadavick  was  not  then  a  city,  and 
this  standing  in  a  double  queue  at  town-meeting  sev- 
eral hours  to  vote  was  a  bore  of  the  first  water ;  and  so 
when  I  found  that  there  was  but  one  Frederic  Ingham 
on  the  list,  and  that  one  of  us  must  give  up,  I  stayed  at 
home  and  finished  the  letters  (which,  indeed,  pro- 
cured for  Fothergill  his  coveted  appointment  of  Pro- 
fessor of  Astronomy  at  Leavenworth),  and  I  gave  Den- 
nis, as  we  called  him,  the  chance.  Something  in  the 
matter  gave  a  good  deal  of  popularity  to  the  Frederic 
Ingham  name ;  and  at  the  adjourned  election,  next 
week,  Frederic  Ingham  was  chosen  to  the  legislature. 
Whether  this  was  I  or  Dennis  I  never  really  knew. 
My  friends  seemed  to  think  it  was  I;  but  I  felt  that 
as  Dennis  had  done  the  popular  thing,  he  was  entitled 
to  the  honor :  so  I  sent  him  to  Augusta  when  the  time 
came,  and  he  took  the  oaths.  And  a  very  valuable 
member  he  made.  They  appointed  him  on  the  Com- 
mittee on  Parishes  ;  but  I  wrote  a  letter  for  him,  re- 
signing, on  the  ground  that  he  took  an  interest  in  our 
claim  to  the  stumpage  in  the  minister's  sixteenths  of 
Gore  A,  next  No.  7,  in  the  10th  Range.  He  never 
made  any  speeches,  and  always  voted  with  the  minor- 


190     MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME. 

ity,  which  was  what  he  was  sent  to  do.  He  made  me 
and  himself  a  great  many  good  friends,  some  of  whom 
I  did  not  afterwards  recognize  as  quickly  as  Dennis 
did  my  parishioners.  On  one  or  two  occasions,  when 
there  was  wood  to  saw  at  home,  I  kept  him  at  home ; 
but  I  took  those  occasions  to  go  to  Augusta  myself. 
Finding  myself  often  in  his  vacant  seat  at  these  times, 
I  watched  the  proceedings  with  a  good  deal  of  care  ; 
and  once  was  so  much  excited  that  I  delivered  my 
somewhat  celebrated  speech  on  the  Central  School- 
District  question,  a  speech  of  which  the  "  State  of 
Maine  "  printed  some  extra  copies.  I  believe  there  is 
no  formal  rule  permitting  strangers  to  speak ;  but  no 
one  objected. 

Dennis  himself,  as  I  said,  never  spoke  at  all.  But 
our  experience  this  session  led  me  to  think  that  if,  by 
some  such  "  general  understanding "  as  the  reports 
speak  of  in  legislation  daily,  every  member  of  Congress 
might  leave  a  double  to  sit  through  those  deadly  ses- 
sions and  answer  to  roll-calls  and  do  the  legitimate 
party-voting,  which  appears  stereotyped  in  the  regular 
list  of  Ashe,  Bocock,  Black,  etc.,  we  should  gain  de- 
cidedly in  working-power.  As  things  stand,  the  sad- 
dest State  prison  I  ever  visit  is  that  Representatives' 
Chamber  in  Washington.  If  a  man  leaves  for  an 
nour,  twenty  "  correspondents "  may  be  howling, 
"  Where  was  Mr.  Pendergrast  when  the  Oregon  bill 
passed  ?  "  Ana  if  poor  Pendergrast  stays  there  !  Cer- 
tainly the  worst  use  you  can  make  of  a  man  is  to  put 
him  in  prison  ! 


MY   DOUBLE,  AND   HOW   HE   UNDID   ME.  191 

I  know,  indeed,  that  public  men  of  the  highest  rank 
have  resorted  to  this  expedient  long  ago.  Dumas's 
novel  of  the  "  Iron  Mask  "  turns  on  the  brutal  impris- 
onment of  Louis  the  Fourteenth's  double.  There 
seems  little  doubt,  in  our  own  history,  that  it  was  the 
real  General  Pierce  who  shed  tears  when  the  dele- 
gate from  Lawrence  explained  to  him  the  sufferings  of 
the  people  there,  and  only  General  Pierce's  double 
who  had  given  the  orders  for  the  assault  on  that  town, 
which  was  invaded  the  next  day.  My  charming 
friend,  George  Withers,  has,  I  am  almost  sure,  a 
double,  who  preaches  his  afternoon  sermons  for  him. 
This  is  the  reason  that  the  theology  often  varies  so 
from  that  of  the  forenoon.  But  that  double  is  almost 
as  charming  as  the  original.  Some  of  the  most  well 
defined  men,  who  stand  out  most  prominently  on  the 
background  of  history,  are  in  this  way  stereoscopic 
men,  who  owe  their  distinct  relief  to  the  slight  differ- 
ences between  the  doubles.  All  this  I  know.  My 
present  suggestion  is  simply  the  great  extension  of  the 
system,  so  that  all  public  machine-work  may  be  done 
by  it. 

But  I  see  I  loiter  on  my  story,  which  is  rushing  to 
the  plunge.  Let  me  stop  an  instant  more,  however, 
to  recall,  were  it  only  to  myself,  that  charming  year 
while  all  was  yet  well.  After  the  double  had  become 
a  matter  of  course,  for  nearly  twelve  months  before  he 
undid  me,  what  a  year  it  was  !  Full  of  active  life,  full 
of  happy  love,  of  the  hardest  work,  of  the  sweetest 


J  92  MY  DOUBLE,   AND   HOW  HE   UNDID   ME. 

sleep,  and  the  fulfilment  of  so  many  of  the  fresh  aspi- 
rations and  dreams  of  boyhood !  Dennis  went  to 
every  school-committee  meeting,  and  sat  through  all 
those  late  wranglings  which  used  to  keep  me  up  till 
midnight  and  awake  till  morning.  He  attended  all 
the  lectures  to  which  foreign  exiles  sent  me  tickets 
begging  me  to  come  for  the  love  of  Heaven  and  of 
Bohemia.  He  accepted  and  used  all  the  tickets  for 
charity  concerts  which  were  sent  to  me.  He  appeared 
everywhere  where  it  was  specially  desirable  that  u  our 
denomination,"  or  u  our  party,"  or  "  our  class,"  or 
"  our  family,"  or  "  our  street,"  or  "  our  town,"  or 
"our  country,"  or  "  our  State,"7 should  be  fully  repre- 
sented. And  I  fell  back  to  that  charming  life  which 
in  boyhood  one  dreams  of,  when  he  supposes  he  shall 
do  his  own  duty  and  make  his  own  sacrifices,  without 
being  tied  up  with  those  of  other  people.  My  rusty 
Sanskrit,  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  French, 
Italian,  Spanish,  German,  and  English  began  to  take 
polish.  Heavens  !  how  little  I  had  done  with  them 
while  I  attended  to  my  publie  duties  !  My  calls  on  my 
parishioners  became  the  friendly,  frequent,  homelike 
sociabilities  they  were  meant  to  be,  instead  of  the  hard 
work  of  a  man  goaded  to  desperation  by  the  sight  of 
his  lists  of  arrears.  And  preaching !  what  a  luxury 
preaching  was  when  I  had  on  Sunday  the  whole  re- 
sult of  an  individual,  personal  week,  from  which  to 
speak  to  a  people  whom  all  that  week  I  had  been 
meeting  as  hand-to-hand  friend  ;  —  I,  never  tired  on 


MY   DOUBLE,  AND    HOW   HE   UNDID    ME.  193 

Suuday,  and  in  condition  to  leave  the  sermon  at  home, 
if  I  chose,  and  preach  it  extempore,  as  all  men  should 
do  always.  Indeed,  I  wonder,  when  I  think  that  a 
sensible  people,  like  ours,  —  really  more  attached  to 
their  clergy  than  they  were  in  the  lost  days,  when  the 
Mathers  and  Nortons  were  noblemen,  —  should  choose 
to  neutralize  so  much  of  their  ministers'  lives,  and  de- 
stroy so  much  of  their  early  training,  by  this  unde- 
fined passion  for  seeing  them  in  public.  It  springs 
from  our  balancing  of  sects.  If  a  spirited  Episcopa- 
lian takes  an  interest  in  the  almshouse,  and  is  put  on 
the  Poor  Board,  every  other  denomination  must  have 
a  minister  there,  lest  the  poorhouse  be  changed  into 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  If  a  Sandemanian  is  chosen 
president  of  the  Young  Men's  Library,  there  must  be 
a  Methodist  vice-president  and  a  Baptist  secretary. 
And  if  a  Universalist  Sunday-School  Convention  col- 
lects five  hundred  delegates,  the  next  Congregational- 
ist  Sabbath-School  Conference  must  be  as  large,  "  lest 
'  they  '  —  whoever  they  may  be  —  should  think  i  we  ' 
—  whoever  we  may  be  —  are  going  down." 

Freed  from  these  necessities,  that  happy  year  I  be- 
gan  to  know  my  wife  by  sight.  We  saw  each  other 
sometimes.  In  those  long  mornings,  when  Dennis 
was  in  the  study  explaining  to  map-peddlers  that  I  had 
eleven  maps  of  Jerusalem  already,  and  to  school-book 
agents  that  I  would  see  them  hanged  before  I  would 
be  bribed  to  introduce  their  text-books  into  the  schools, 
— -she  and  I  were  at  work  together,  as  in  those  ol  j 


194  MY  DOUBLE,  AND   HOW   HE   UNDID  ME. 

dreamy  days,  —  and  in  these  of  our  log-cabin  again, 
But  all  this  could  not  last,  —  and  at  length  poor  Den- 
nis, my  double,  overtasked  in  turn,  undid  me. 

It  was  thus  it  happened.  There  is  an  excellent 
fellow,  once  a  minister,  —  I  will  call  him  Isaacs, — 
who  deserves  well  of  the  world  till  he  dies,  and  after, 
because  he  once,  in  a  real  exigency,  did  the  right 
thing,  in  the  right  way,  at  the  right  time,  as  no  other 
man  could  do  it.  In  the  world's  great  football  match, 
the  ball  by  chance  found  him  loitering  on  the  outside 
of  the  field  ;  he  closed  with  it,  "  camped  "  it,  charged 
it  home,  —  yes,  right  through  the  other  side,  —  not 
disturbed,  not  frightened  by  his  own  success,  —  and 
breathless  found  himself  a  great  man,  as  the  Great 
Delta  rang  applause.  But  he  did  not  find  himself 
a  rich  man  ;  and  the  football  has  never  come  in  his 
way  again.  From  that  moment  to  this  moment  he 
has  been  of  no  use,  that  one  can  see  at  all.  Still,  for 
that  great  act  we  speak  of  Isaacs  gratefully  and  re- 
member him  kindly ;  and  he  forges  on,  hoping  to 
meet  the  football  somewhere  again.  In  that  vague 
hope,  he  had  arranged  a  u  movement "  for  a  general 
organization  of  the  human  family  into  Debating- Clubs, 
County  Societies,  State  Unions,  etc.,  etc.,  with  a  view 
of  inducing  all  children  to  take  hold  of  the  handles  of 
their  knives  and  forks,  instead  of  the  metal.  Children 
have  bad  habits  in  that  way.  The  movement,  of 
course,  was  absurd  ;  but  we  all  did  our  best  to  forward, 
not  it,  but  him.     It  came  time  for  the  annual  county- 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME.     195 

meeting  on  this  subject  to  be  held  at  Naguadavick. 
Isaacs  came  round,  good  fellow  !  to  arrange  for  it,  — 
got  the  town-hall,  got  the  Governor  to  preside  (the 
saint !  —  he  ought  to  have  triplet  doubles  provided 
him  by  law),  and  then  came  to  get  me  to  speak. 
"  No,"  I  said,  "  I  would  not  speak,  if  ten  Governors 
presided.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  enterprise.  If  1 
spoke,  it  should  be  to  say  children  should  take  hold  of 
the  prongs  of  the  forks  and  the  blades  of  the  knives. 
I  would  subscribe  ten  dollars,  but  I  would  not  speak  a 
mill."  So  poor  Isaacs  went  his  way  sadly,  to  coax 
Auchmuty  to  speak,  and  Delafield.  I  went  out. 
Not  long  after  he  came  back,  and  told  Polly  that  they 
had  promised  to  speak,  the  Governor  would  speak, 
and  he  himself  would  close  with  the  quarterly  report, 
and  some  interesting  anecdotes  regarding  Miss  Bif- 
fin's way  of  handling  her  knife  and  Mr.  Nellis's  way 
of  footing  his  fork.  "  Now  if  Mr.  Ingham  will  only 
come  and  sit  on  the  platform,  he  need  not  say  one 
word  ;  but  it  will  show  well  in  the  paper,  —  it  will 
show  that  the  Sandemanians  take  as  much  interest  in 
the  movement  as  the  Armenians  or  the  Mesopotamians, 
and  will  be  a  great  favor  to  me."  Polly,  good  soul  I 
was  tempted,  and  she  promised.  She  knew  Mrs.  Isaacs 
was  starving,  and  the  babies,  —  she  knew  Dennis 
was  at  home,  —  and  she  promised  !  Night  came,  and 
I  returned.  I  heard  her  story.  I  was  sorry.  I 
doubted.  But  Polly  had  promised  to  beg  me,  and  I 
dared  all !  I  told  Dennis  to  hold  his  peace,  under  al] 
circumstances,  and  sent  him  down. 


196  MY   DOUBLE,   AND   HOW  HE  UNDID   ME. 

It  was  not  half  an  hour  more  before  he  returned, 
wild  with  excitement,  —  in  a  perfect  Irish  fury,  — 
which  it  was  long  before  I  understood.  But  I  knew 
at  once  that  he  had  undone  me ! 

What  happened  was  this.  The  audience  got  to- 
gether, attracted  by  Governor  Gorges's  name.  There 
were  a  thousand  people.  Poor  Gorges  was  late  from 
Augusta.  They  became  impatient.  He  came  in  di- 
rect from  the  train  at  last,  really  ignorant  of  the  ob- 
ject of  the  meeting.  He  opened  it  in  the  fewest 
possible  words,  and  said  other  gentlemen  were  present 
who  would  entertain  them  better  than  he.  The  au- 
dience were  disappointed,  but  waited.  The  Gover- 
nor, prompted  by  Isaacs,  said,  "  The  Honorable  Mr. 
Delafield  will  address  you."  Delafield  had  forgotten 
the  knives  and  forks,  and  was  playing  the  Buy  Lopez 
opening  at  the  chess-club.  "  The  Rev.  Mr.  Auch- 
muty  will  address  you."  Auchmuty  had  promised  to 
speak  late,  and  was  at  the  school-committee.  u  I  see 
Dr.  Stearns  in  the  hall;  perhaps  he  will  say  a  word." 
Dr.  Stearns  said  he  had  come  to  listen  and  not  to  speak 
The  Governor  and  Isaacs  whispered.  The  Governor 
looked  at  Dennis,  who  was  resplendent  on  the  plat- 
form ;  but  Isaacs,  to  give  him  his  due,  shook  his  head, 
But  the  look  was  enough.  A  miserable  lad,  ill-bred, 
who  had  once  been  in  Boston,  thought  it  would  sound 
well  to  call  for  me,  and  peeped  out,  "  Ingham  !  "  A 
few  more  wretches  cried,  "  Ingham !  Ingham  I " 
Still  Isaacs  was  firm;  but  the  Governor,  anxious,  in- 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME.     1^7 

deed,  to  prevent  a  row,  knew  I  would  say  some- 
thing, and  said,  "  Our  friend  Mr.  Ingham  is  always 
prepared ;  and,  though  we  had  not  relied  upon  him, 
he  will  say  a  word  perhaps."  Applause  followed, 
which  turned  Dennis's  head.  He  rose,  fluttered,  and 
tried  No.  3 :  u  There  has  been  so  much  said,  and,  on 
the  whole,  so  well  said,  that  I  will  not  longer  occupy 
the  time  !  "  and  sat  down,  looking  for  his  hat ;  for 
things  seemed  squally.  But  the  people  cried,  "  Go 
on  !  go  on  !  "  and  some  applauded.  Dennis,  still  con- 
fused, but  flattered  by  the  applause,  to  which  neither 
he  nor  I  are  used,  rose  again,  and  this  time  tried  No. 
2:  "I  am  very  glad  you  liked  it!"  in  a  sonorous, 
clear  delivery.  My  best  friends  stared.  All  the  peo- 
ple who  did  not  know  me  personally  yelled  with  de- 
light at  the  aspect  of  the  evening  ;  the  Governor  was 
beside  himself,  and  poor  Isaacs  thought  he  was  undone ! 
Alas,  it  was  I !  A  boy  in  the  gallery  cried  in  a  loud 
tone,  "  It 's  all  an  infernal  humbug,"  just  as  Dennis, 
waving  his  hand,  commanded  silence,  and  tried  No.  4: 
"  I  agree,  in  general,  with  my  friend  the  other  side  of 
the  room."  The  poor  Governor  doubted  his  senses 
and  crossed  to  stop  him,  —  not  in  time,  however 
The  same  gallery-boy  shouted,  "  How  's  your  moth- 
er ? "  and  Dennis,  now  completely  lost,  tried,  as  his 
last  shot,  No.  1,  vainly :  "  Very  well,  thank  you ;  and 
you?" 

I  think  I  must  have   been  undone  already.      But 
Dennis,  like  another  Lockhard,  chose  "  to  make  sicker.*' 


198  MY  DOUBLE,   AND   HOTV   HE   UNDID   ME. 

The  audience  rose  in  a  whirl  of  amazement,  rage,  and 
sorrow.  Some  other  impertinence,  aimed  at  Dennis, 
broke  all  restraint,  and,  in  pure  Irish,  he  delivered 
himself  of  an  address  to  the  gallery,  inviting  any  per- 
son who  wished  to  fight  to  come  down  and  do  so,  — 
stating,  that  they  were  all  dogs  and  cowards  and  the 
sons  of  dogs  and  cowards,  —  that  he  would  take  any 
five  of  them  single-handed.  "  Shure,  I  have  said  all 
his  Riverence  and  the  Misthress  bade  me  say,"  cried 
he,  in  defiance  ;  and,  seizing  the  Governor's  cane  from 
his  hand,  brandished  it,  quarter-staff  fashion,  above  his 
head.  He  was,  indeed,  got  from  the  hall  only  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  by  the  Governor,  the  City  Mar- 
shal, who  had  been  called  in,  and  the  Superintendent 
of  my  Sunday-School. 

The  universal  impression,  of  course,  was,  that  the 
Rev.  Frederic  Ingham  had  lost  all  command  of  himself 
in  some  of  those  haunts  of  intoxication  which  for  fif- 
teen years  I  have  been  laboring  to  destroy.  Till  this 
moment,  indeed,  that  is  the  impression  in  Naguadavick. 
This  number  of  the  Atlantic  will  relieve  from  it  a 
hundred  friends  of  mine  who  have  been  sadly  wounded 
by  that  notion  now  for  years ;  but  I  shall  not  be  likely 
ever  to  show  my  head  there  again. 

No  !     My  double  has  undone  me. 

We  left  town  at  seven  the  next  morning.  I  came 
to  No.  9,  in  the  Third  Range,  and  settled  on  the  Min- 
ister's Lot.  In  the  new  towns  in  Maine,  the  first 
settled  minister  has  a  gift  of  a  hundred  acres  of  land. 


MY  DOUBLE,  AND  HOW  HE  UNDID  ME.     199 

I  am  the  first  settled  minister  in  No.  9.  My  wife  and 
little  Paulina  are  my  parish.  We  raise  corn  enough 
to  live  on  in  summer.  We  kill  bear's  meat  enough  to 
carbonize  it  in  winter.  I  work  on  steadily  on  my 
"  Traces  of  Sandemanianism  in  the  Sixth  and  Seventh 
Centuries,"  which  I  hope  to  persuade  Phillips,  Samp- 
son, &  Co.  to  publish  next  year.  We  are  very  happy, 
but  the  world  thinks  we  are  undone. 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 


[This  story  originated  in  the  advertisement  of  the  humbug 
which  it  describes.  Some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  since,  when 
gift  enterprises  rose  to  one  of  their  climaxes,  a  gift  of  a  large  sum 
of  money,  I  think  $10,000,  was  offered  in  New  York  to  the  most 
successful  ticket-holder  in  some  scheme,  and  one  of  $  5,000  to  the 
second.  It  was  arranged  that  one  of  these  parties  should  be  a 
man  and  the  other  a  woman ;  and  the  amiable  suggestion  was 
added,  on  the  part  of  the  undertaker  of  the  enterprise,  that  if  the 
gentleman  and  lady  who  drew  these  prizes  liked  each  other 
sufficiently  well  when  the  distribution  was  made,  they  might  re- 
gard the  decision  as  a  match  made  for  them  in  Heaven,  and  take 
the  money  as  the  dowry  of  the  bride.  This  thoroughly  practical, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  thoroughly  absurd  suggestion,  arrested  the 
attention  of  a  distinguished  story-teller,  a  dear  friend  of  mine, 
who  proposed  to  me  that,  we  should  each  of  us  write  the  history 
of  one  of  the  two  successful  parties,  to  be  woven  together  by  their 
union  at  the  end.  The  plan,  however,  lay  latent  for  years,  — 
the  gift  enterprise  of  course  blew  up,  —  and  it  was  not  until  tha 
summer  of  1862  that  I  wrote  my  half  of  the  proposed  story,  with 
the  hope  of  eliciting  the  other  half.  My  friend's  more  important 
engagements,  however,  have  thus  far  kept  Fausta's  detailed  biog- 
raphy from  the  light.  I  sent  my  half  to  Mr.  Frank  Leslie,  in 
competition  for  a  premium  offered  by  him,  as  is  stated  in  the 
second  chapter  of  the  story.  And  the  story  found  such  favor  in 
the  eyes  of  the  judges,  that  it  received  one  of  his  second  premi- 
ums.    The  first    was    very   properly   awarded   to   Miss   Louisa 


THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  201 

Alcott,  for  a  story  of  great  spirit  and  power.  "  The  Children  of 
the  Public  "  was  printed  in  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Newspaper 
for  January  24  and  January  31,  1863.  The  moral  which  it  tries 
to  illustrate,  which  is,  I  believe,  an  important  one,  was  thus  com- 
mended to  the  attention  of  the  very  large  circle  of  the  readers  of 
that  journal,  —  a  journal  to  which  I  am  eager  to  say  I  think  this 
nation  has  been  very  largely  indebted  for  the  loyalty,  the  good 
sense,  and  the  high  tone  which  seem  always  to  characterize  it. 
During  the  war,  the  pictorial  journals  had  immense  influence  in 
the  army,  and  they  used  this  influence  with  an  undeviating  re- 
gard to  the  true  honor  of  the  country.] 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE     PORK-BARREL. 

"  Felix,"  said  my  wife  to  me,  as  I  came  home  to- 
night, "you  will  have  to  go  to  the  pork-barrel." 

"  Are  you  quite  sure,"  said  I,  —  "  quite  sure  ?  '  Woe 
to  him,'  says  the  oracle,  '  who  goes  to  the  pork-barrel 
before  the  moment  of  his  need.'  " 

"  And  woe  to  him,  say  I,"  replied  my  brave  wife, 
. —  r«  woe  and  disaster  to  him  ;  but  the  moment  of  our 
need  has  come.  The  figures  are  here,  and  you  shall 
see.     I  have  it  all  in  black  and  in  white." 

And  so  it  proved,  indeed,  that  when  Miss  Sampson* 
the  nurse,  was  paid  for  her  month's  service,  and  when 
the  boys  had  their  winter  boots,  and  when  my  life- 
insurance  assessment  was  provided  for,  and  the  new 
payment  for  the  insurance  on  the  house,  —  when  the 


202  THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC. 

taxes  were  settled  with  the  collector  (and  my  wife 
had  to  lay  aside  double  for  the  war),  —  when  the  pew- 
rent  was  paid  for  the  year,  and  the  water-rate  —  we 
must  have  to  start  with,  on  the  1st  of  January,  cne 
hundred  dollars.  This,  as  we  live,  would  pay,  in 
cash,  the  butcher,  and  the  grocer,  and  the  baker,  and 
all  the  dealers  in  things  that  perish,  and  would  buy 
the  omnibus  tickets,  and  recompense  Bridget  till  the 
1st  of  April.  And  at  my  house,  if  we  can  see  forward 
three  months  we  are  satisfied.  But,  at  my  house,  we 
are  never  satisfied  if  there  is  a  credit  at  any  store  for 
us.  We  are  sWorn  to  pay  as  we  go.  We  owe  no 
man  anything. 

So  it  was  that  my  wife  said  :  "  Felix,  you  will  have 
to  go  to  the  pork-barrel." 

This  is  the  story  of  the  pork-barrel. 

It  happened  once,  in  a  little  parish  in  the  Green 
Mountains,  that  the  deacon  reported  to  Parson 
Plunkett,  that,  as  he  rode  to  meeting  by  Chung-a- 
baug  Pond,  he  saw  Michael  Stowers  fishing  for 
pickerel  through  a  hole  in  the  ice  on  the  Sabbath  day. 
The  parson  made  note  of  the  complaint,  and  that  after- 
noon drove  over  to  the  pond  in  his  "  one-horse  shay." 
He  made  his  visit,  not  unacceptable,  on  the  poor 
Stowers  household,  and  then  crossed  lots  to  the  place 
where  he  saw  poor  Michael  hoeing.  He  told  Michael 
that  he  was  charged  with  Sabbath  breaking,  and  bade 
him  plead  to  the  charge.  And  poor  Mike,  like  a  man, 
plead  guilty  ;   but,  in  extenuation,  he  said  that  there 


THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE   PUBLIC.  203 

was  nothing  to  eat  in  the  house,  and  rather  than  see 
wife  and  children  faint,  he  had  cut  a  hole  in  the  ice, 
had  put  in  his  hook  again  and  again,  and  yet  again, 
and  coining  home  had  delighted  the  waiting  family 
with  an  unexpected  breakfast.  The  good  parson 
made  no  rebuke,  nodded  pensive,  and  drove  straight- 
way to  the  deacon's  door. 

"  Deacon,"  said  he,  "  what  meat  did  you  eat  ior 
breakfast  yesterday?  " 

The  deacon's  family  had  eaten  salt  pork,  fried. 

"  And  where  did  you  get  the  pork,  Deacon  ?  " 

The  Deacon  stared,  but  said  he  had  taken  it  from 
his  pork-barrel. 

"Yes,  Deacon,"  said  the  old  man;  "  I  supposed  so. 
I  have  been  to  see  Brother  Stowers,  to  talk  to  him 
about  his  Sabbath-breaking ;  and,  Deacon,  I  find  the 
pond  is  his  pork-barrel." 

The  story  is  a  favorite  with  me  and  with  Fausta. 
But  "  woe,"  says  the  oracle,  "  to  him  who  goes  to  the 
pork-barrel  before  the  moment  of  his  need."  And  to 
that  "  woe  "  both  Fausta  and  I  say  1*  amen."  For 
we  know  that  there  is  no  fish  in  our  pond  for  spend- 
thrifts or  for  lazy-bones  ;  none  for  people  who  wear 
gold  chains  or  Attleborough  jewelry ;  none  for  people 
who  are  ashamed  of  cheap  carpets  or  wooden  mantel- 
pieces. Not  for  those  who  run  in  debt  will  the  fish 
bite ;  nor  for  those  who  pretend  to  be  richer  or  better 
or  wiser  than  they  are.  No !  But  we  have  found,  in 
our  lives,   that  in  a  great  democracy  there  reigns  a 


204        THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

great  and  gracious  sovereign.  We  have  found  that  this 
sovereign,  in  a  reckless  and  unconscious  way,  is,  all 
the  time,  making  the  most  profuse  provision  for  all  the 
citizens.  We  have  found  that  those  who  are  not  too 
grand  to  trust  him  fare  as  well  as  they  deserve.  We 
have  found,  on  the  other  hand,  that  those  who  lick  his 
feet  or  flatter  his  follies  fare  worst  of  living  men. 
We  find  that  those  who  work  honestly,  and  only  seek 
a  man's  fair  average  of  life,  or  a  woman's,  get  that 
average,  though  sometimes  by  the  most  singular  ex- 
periences in  the  long  run.  And  thus  we  find  that, 
wThen  an  extraordinary  contingency  arises  in  life,  as  just 
now  in  ours,  we  have  only  to  go  to  our  pork-barrel, 
and  the  fish  rises  to  our  hook  or  spear. 

The  sovereign  brings  this  about  in  all  sorts  of  ways, 
bat  he  does  not  fail,  if,  without  flattering  him,  you 
trust  him.  Of  this  sovereign  the  name  is — "the 
Public."  Fausta  and  I  are  apt  to  call  ourselves  his 
children,  and  so  I  name  this  story  of  our  lives, 

"The  Children  of  the  Public." 


CHAPTER    II. 

WHERE     IS     THE     BARREL? 

"  Where  is  the  barrel  this  time,  Fausta  ?  "  said  I, 
after  I  had  added  and  subtracted  her  figures  three 
times,  to  be  sure  she  had  carried  her  tens  and  hun 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        '206 

dreds  rightly.  For  the  units,  in  such  accounts,  m 
face  of  Dr.  Franklin,  I  confess  I  do  not  care. 

"  The  barrel,"  said  she,  "is  in  Frank  Leslie's 
Office.  Here  is  the  mark  !  "  and  she  handed  me 
Frank  Leslie's  Newspaper,  with  a  mark  at  this 
announcement :  — 

$100 

for  the  best  Short  Tale  of  from  one  to  two  pages  of  Frank  Leslie's 
Illustrated  Newspaper,  to  be  sent  iu  on  or  before  the  1st  ol 
November,  1862. 

*•  There  is  another  barrel,"  she  said,  "  with  $  5,000 
in  it,  and  another  with  $  1,000.  But  we  do  not  want 
$5,000  or  $  1,000.  There  is  a  little  barrel  with  $  50 
in  it.  But  see  here,  with  all  this  figuring,  I  cannot 
make  it  do.  I  have  stopped  the  gas  now,  and  I  have 
turned  the  children's  coats,  —  I  wish  you  would  see 
Dow  well  Robert's  looks,  —  and  I  have  had  a  new  tile 
put  in  the  cook-stove,  instead  of  buying  that  lovely 
crew  '  Banner.'  But  all  will  not  do.  We  must  go  to 
irus  barrel." 

"  And  what  is  to  be  the  hook,  darling,  this  time?" 
said  I. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  of  it  all  day.  1  hope  you 
will  not  hate  it,  —  I  know  you  will  not  like  it  exactly ; 
but  why  not  write  down  just  the  whole  story  ol 
what  it  is  to  be  '  Children  of  the  Public  ' ;  how  we 
came  to  live  here,  you  know;  how  we  built  the  house, 
and  —  all  about  it  ?  " 

"  How  Felix  knew  Fausta,"  said  I ;  "  and  how 
Fausta  first  met  Felix,  perhaps  ;   and  when  they  first 


206  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC. 

kissed  each  other  ;  and  what  she  said  to  him  when 
they  did  so." 

"  Tell  that,  if  you  dare,"  said  Fausta ;  "  but  per- 
haps —  the  oracle  says  we  must  not  be  proud  —  per- 
haps you  might  tell  just  a  little.  You  know  —  really 
almost  everybody  is  named  Carter  now ;  and  I  do 
not  believe  the  neighbors  will  notice,  —  perhaps  they 
won't  read  the  paper.  And  if  they  do  notice  it,  I 
don't  care  !     There  !  " 

"  It  will  not  be  so  bad  as  —  " 

But  I  never  finished  the  sentence.  An  imperative 
gesture  closed  my  lips  physically  as  well  as  metaphor- 
ically, and  I  was  glad  to  turn  the  subject  enough  to 
sit  down  to  tea  with  the  children.  After  the  bread 
and  butter  we  agreed  what  we  might  and  what  we 
might  not  tell,  and  then  I  wrote  what  the  reader  is 
now  to  see. 


CHAPTER    III. 

MY    LIFE     TO     ITS     CRISIS. 

New-Yorkers  of  to-day  see  so  many  processions, 
and  live  through  so  many  sensations,  and  hurrah  for 
so  many  heroes  in  every  year,  that  it  is  only  the 
oldest  of  fogies  who  tells  you  of  the  triumphant  pro- 
cession of  steamboats  which,  in  the  year  1824,  wel- 
comed General  Lafayette  on  his  arrival  from  his 
tour  through   the    country  he  had  so  nobly  served. 


THE   CHILDREN    OF   THE   PUBLIC.  207 

But,  if  the  reader  wishes  to  lengthen  out  this  story 
he  may  button  tli3  next  silver-gray  friend  he  meets, 
and  ask  him  to  tell  of  the  broken  English  and  broken 
French  of  the  Marquis,  of  Levasseur,  and  the  rest  of 
them  ;  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  and  the  readi- 
ness of  the  visitors,  and  he  will  please  bear  in  mind 
that  of  all  that  am  I. 

For  it  so  happened  that  on  the  morning  when,  for 
want  of  better  lions  to  show,  the  mayor  and  governor 
and  the  rest  of  them  took  the  Marquis  and  his  sec- 
retary, and  the  rest  of  them,  to  see  the  orphan  asylum 
in  Deering  Street,  —  as  they  passed  into  the  first  ward, 
after  having  had  "a  little  refreshment"  in  the  mana- 
gers' room,  Sally  Eaton,  the  head  nurse,  dropped  the 
first  courtesy  to  them,  and  Sally  Eaton,  as  it  happened, 
held  me  screaming  in  her  arms.  I  had  been  sent  to 
the  asylum  that  morning  with  a  paper  pinned  to  my 
bib,  which  said  my  name  was  Felix  Carter. 

"  Eet  ees  verra  fine,"  said  the  Marquis,  smiling 
blandly. 

"  Kavissant !  "  said  Levasseur,  and  he  dropped  a 
five-franc  piece  into  Sally  Eaton's  hand.  And  so  the 
procession  of  exhibiting  managers  talking  bad  French, 
and  of  exhibited  Frenchmen  talking  bad  English, 
passed  on  ;  all  but  good  old  Elkanah  Ogden  —  God 
bless  him! — who  happened  to  have  come  there  with 
the  governor's  party,  and  who  loitered  a  minute  to 
talk  with  Sally  Eaton  about  me. 

Years  afterwards  she  told  me    how  the  old  man 


208        THE  CHILDKEN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

kissed  me,  how  his  eyes  watered  when  he  asked  nry 
story,  how  she  told  again  of  the  moment  when  I  was 
heard  screaming  on  the  doorstep,  and  how  she  offered 
to  go  and  bring  the  paper  which  had  been  pinned  to 
my  bib.  But  the  old  man  said  it  was  no  matter,  — 
"  only  we  would  have  called  him  Marquis,"  said  he, 
"  if  his  name  was  not  provided  for  him.  We  must 
not  leave  him  here,"  he  said ;  "  he  shall  grow  up  a 
farmer's  lad,  and  not  a  little  cockney."  And  so, 
instead  of  going  the  grand  round  of  infirmaries,  kitch- 
ens, bakeries,  and  dormitories  with  the  rest,  the  good 
old  soul  went  back  into  the  managers'  room,  and 
wrote  at  the  moment  a  letter  to  John  Myers,  who 
took  care  of  his  wild  land  in  St.  Lawrence  County  for 
him,  to  ask  him  if  Mrs.  Myers  would  not  bring  up 
an  orphan  baby  by  hand  for  him  ;  and  if,  both  to- 
gether, they  would  not  train  this  baby  till  he  said 
"  stop  "  ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  allowed  them,  in 
the  yearly  account,  a  hundred  dollars  each  year  for  the 
charge. 

Anybody  who  knows  how  far  a  hundred  dollars 
goes  in  the  backwoods,  in  St.  Lawrence  County,  will 
know  that  any  settler  would  be  glad  to  take  a  ward  so 
recommended.  Anybody  who  knew  Betsy  Myers  ai 
well  as  old  Elkanah  Ogden  did,  would  know  she 
would  have  taken  any  orphan  brought  to  her  door, 
even  if  he  were  not  recommended  at  all. 

So  it  happened,  thanks  to  Lafayette  and  the  city 
council !  that  I  had  not  been  a  "  Child  of  the  Public  " 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        209 

a  day,  before,  in  its  great,  clumsy,  liberal  way,  it  had 
provided  for  me.  I  owed  my  healthy,  happy  home 
of  the  next  fourteen  years  in  the  wilderness  to  those 
marvellous  habits,  which  I  should  else  call  absurd, 
with  which  we  lionize  strangers.  Because  our  hos- 
pitals and  poorhou^s  are  the  largest  buildings  we 
have,  we  entertain  tne  Prince  of  Wales  and  Jenny 
Lind  alike,  by  showing  them  crazy  people  and  paupers. 
Easy  enough  to  laugh  at  is  the  display ;  but  if,  dear 
Public,  it  happen,  that  by  such  a  habit  you  ventilate 
your  Bridewell  or  your  Bedlam,  is  not  the  ventilation, 
perhaps,  a  compensation  for  the  absurdity  ?  I  do  not 
know  if  Lafayette  was  any  the  better  for  his  seeing 
the  Deering  Street  Asylum ;  but  I  do  know  I  was. 

This  is  no  history  of  my  life.  It  is  only  an  illus- 
tration of  one  of  its  principles.  I  have  no  anecdotes 
of  wilderness  life  to  tell,  and  no  sketch  of  the  lovely 
rugged  traits  of  John  and  Betsy  Myers,  —  my  real 
father  and  mother.  I  have  no  quest  for  the  pretended 
parents,  who  threw  me  away  in  my  babyhood,  to  re 
cord.  They  closed  accounts  with  me  when  they  left 
me  on  the  asylum  steps,  and  I  with  them.  I  grew  up 
with  such  schooling  as  the  public  gave,  —  ten  weeks 
in  winter  always,  and  ten  in  summer,  till  I  was  big 
enough  to  work  on  the  farm,  —  better  periods  of  schools, 
I  hold,  than  on  the  modern  systems.  Mr.  Ogden  I 
never  saw.  Regularly  he  allowed  for  me  the  hundred 
a  year  till  I  was  nine  years  old,  and  then  suddenly  he 
died,  as  the  reader  perhaps  knows.      But  John  Myers 


210  THE   CHILDKEN   OF  THE   PUBLIC. 

kept  me  as  his  son,  none  the  less.  I  knew  no  change 
until,  when  I  was  fourteen,  he  thought  it  time  for  me 
to  see  the  world,  and  sent  me  to  what,  in  those  days, 
was  called  a  "  Manual-Labor  School. " 

There  was  a  theory  coming  up  in  those  days,  wholly 
unfounded  in  physiology,  that  if  a  man  worked  five 
hours  with  his  hands,  he  could  study  better  in  the 
next  five.  It  is  all  nonsense.  Exhaustion  is  exhaus- 
tion ;  and  if  you  exhaust  a  vessel  by  one  stopcock, 
nothing  is  gained  or  saved  by  closing  that  and  open- 
ing another.  The  old  up-country  theory  is  the  true 
one.  Study  ten  weeks  and  chop  wood  fifteen  ;  study 
ten  more  and  harvest  fifteen.  But  the  "Manual- 
Labor  School "  offered  itself  for  really  no  pay,  only 
John  Myers  and  I  carried  over,  I  remember,  a  dozen 
barrels  of  potatoes  when  I  went  there  with  my  books. 
The  school  was  kept  at  Roscius,  and  if  I  would  work 
in  the  carpenter's  shop  and  on  the  school  farm  five 
hours,  why  they  would  feed  me  and  teach  me  all  they 
knew  in  what  I  had  of  the  day  beside. 

"  Felix,"  said  John,  as  he  left  me,  "  I  do  not  sup- 
pose this  is  the  best  school  in  the  world,  unless  you 
make  it  so.  But  I  do  suppose  you  can  make  it  so. 
If  you  and  I  went  whining  about,  looking  for  the  best 
school  in  the  world,  and  for  somebody  to  pay  your 
way  through  it,  I  should  die,  and  you  would  lose  your 
voice  with  whining,  and  we  should  not  find  one  after 
all.  This  is  what  the  public  happens  to  provide  for 
you   and   me,     We   won't    look  a  gift-horse    in   the 


THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    PUBLIC.  211 

moutl .  Get  on  his  back,  Felix ;  groom  him  well  as 
you  can  when  you  stop,  feed  him  when  you  can,  and 
at  all  events  water  him  well  and  take  care  of  him 
well.  My  last  advice  to  you,  Felix,  is  to  take  what 
is  offered  you,  and  never  complain  because  nobody 
offers  more." 

Those  words  are  to  be  cut  on  my  seal-ring,  if  I 
ever  have  one,  and  if  Dr.  Anthon  or  Professor  Web- 
ster will  put  them  into  short  enough  Latin  for  me. 
That  is  the  motto  of  the  "  Children  of  the  Public." 

John  Myers  died  before  that  term  was  out.  And 
my  more  than  mother,  Betsy,  went  back  to  her  friends 
in  Maine.  After  the  funeral  I  never  saw  them  more. 
How  I  lived  from  that  moment  to  what  Fausta  and  I 
call  the  Crisis  is  nobody's  concern.  I  worked  in  the 
shop  at  the  school,  or  on  the  farm.  Afterwards  I 
taught  school  in  neighboring  districts.  I  never  bought 
a  ticket  in  a  lottery  or  a  raffle.  But  whenever  there 
was  a  chance  to  do  an  honest  stroke  of  work,  I  did  it. 
1  have  walked  fifteen  miles  at  night  to  carry  an  elec- 
tion return  to  the  Tribune's  agent  at  Gouverneur.  I 
have  turned  out  in  the  snow  to  break  open  the  road 
when  the  supervisor  could  not  find  another  man  in  the 
township. 

When  Sartain  started  his  magazine,  I  wrote  an 
essay  in  competition  for  his  premiums,  and  the  essay 
earned  its  hundred  dollars.  When  the  managers  of 
the  "  Orphan  Home,"  in  Baltimore,  offered  their 
prizes  for  papers  on  bad  boys,  I  wrote  for  one  of  them, 


212        THE  CHTLDKEN  OF  THE  PUBLIC 

and  that  helped  me  on  four  hard  months.  There  was 
no  luck  in  those  things.  I  needed  the  money,  and  I 
put  my  hook  into  the  pork-barrel,  —  that  is,  I  trusted 
the  Public.  I  never  had  but  one  stroke  of  luck  in  my 
life.  I  wanted  a  new  pair  of  boots  badly.  I  was 
going  to  walk  to  Albany,  to  work  in  the  State  library 
on  the  history  of  the  Six  Nations,  which  had  an  in- 
terest for  me.  I  did  not  have  a  dollar.  Just  then 
there  passed  Congress  the  bill  dividing  the  surplus 
revenue.  The  State  of  New  York  received  two  or 
three  millions,  and  divided  it  among  the  counties. 
The  county  of  St.  Lawrence  divided  it  among  the 
townships,  and  the  township  of  Roscius  divided  it 
among  the  voters.  Two  dollars  and  sixty  cents  of 
Uncle  Sam's  money  came  to  me,  and  with  that  money 
on  my  feet  I  walked  to  Albany.  That  I  call  luck ! 
How  many  fools  had  to  assent  in  an  absurdity  before 
I  could  study  the  history  of  the  Six  Nations ! 

But  one  instance  told  in  detail  is  better  than  a 
thousand  told  in  general,  for  the  illustration  of  a  prin- 
ciple. So  I  will  detain  you  no  longer  from  the  history 
of  what  Fausta  and  I  call 

The  Crisis. 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        213 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE     CRISIS. 

I  was  at  work  as  a  veneerer  in  a  piano-forte  fac- 
tory at  Attica,  when  some  tariff  or  other  was  passed 
or  repealed ;  there  came  a  great  financial  explo- 
sion, and  our  boss,  among  the  rest,  failed.  He 
owed  us  all  six  months'  wages,  and  we  were  all  very 
poor  and  very  blue.  Jonathan  Whittemore  —  a  real 
good  fellow,  who  used  to  cover  the  hammers  with 
leather  —  came  to  me  the  day  the  shop  was  closed, 
and  told  me  he  was  going  to  take  the  chance  to  go  to 
Europe.  He  was  going  to  the  Musical  Conservatory 
at  Leipsic,  if  he  could.  He  would  work  his  passage 
out  as  a  stoker.  He  would  wash  himself  for  three 
or  four  days  at  Bremen,  and  then  get  work,  if  he 
could,  with  Voightlander  or  Von  Hammer  till  he 
could  enter  the  Conservatory.  By  way  of  prepara- 
tion for  this  he  wanted  me  to  sell  him  my  Adler's 
German  Dictionary. 

"  I  've  nothing  to  give  you  for  it,  Felix,  but  this 
foolish  thing,  —  it  is  one  of  Burrham's  tickets,  —  which 
I  bought  in  a  frolic  the  night  of  our  sleigh-ride.  I  '11 
transfer  it  to  you." 

I  told  Jonathan  he  might  have  the  dictionary  and 
welcome.  He  was  doing  a  sensible  thing,  and  he 
would  use  it  twenty  times  as  much  as  I  should.     A? 


214        THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

for  the  ticket,  he  had  better  keep  it.  I  did  not  want 
it.  But  I  saw  he  would  feel  better  if  I  took  it,  —  so 
he  indorsed  it  to  me. 

Now  the  reader  must  know  that  this  Burrham  was 
a  man  who  had  got  hold  of  one  corner  of  the  idea  of 
what  the  Public  could  do  for  its  children.  He  had 
found  out  that  there  were  a  thousand  people  wrho 
would  be  glad  to  make  the  tour  of  the  mountains 
and  the  lakes  every  summer  if  they  could  do  it  for 
half-price.  He  found  out  that  the  railroad  companies 
were  glad  enough  to  put  the  price  down  if  they  could 
be  sure  of  the  thousand  people.  He  mediated  be- 
tween the  two,  and  so  "cheap  excursions"  came  into 
being.  They  are  one  of  the  gifts  the  Public  gives  its 
children.  Rising  from  step  to  step,  Burrham  had,  just 
before  the  great  financial  crisis,  conceived  the  idea  of 
a  great  cheap  combination,  in  wThich  everybody  was 
to  receive  a  magazine  for  a  year  and  a  cyclopaedia, 
both  at  half-price  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  the  money 
that  was  gained  in  the  combination  was  to  be  given 
by  lot  to  two  ticket-holders,  one  a  man  and  one  a 
woman,  for  their  dowry  in  marriage.  I  dare  say  the 
reader  remembers  the  prospectus.  It  savors  too  much 
of  the  modern  "  Gift  Enterprise  "  to  be  reprinted  in 
full ;  but  it  had  this  honest  element,  that  everybody 
got  more  than  he  could  get  for  his  money  in  retail.  1 
have  my  magazine,  the  old  Boston  Miscellany,  to  this 
day,  and  I  just  now  looked  out  Levasseur's  name  in 
my  cyclopaedia ;  and,  as  you  will  see,  I  have  reason  tv 
know  that  all  the  other  subscribers  got  theirs. 


THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  2U 

One  of  the  tickets  for  these  books,  for  which  Whit- 
temore  had  given  five  good  dollars,  was  what  he  gave 
to  me  for  my  dictionary.  And  so  we  parted.  I 
loitered  at  Attica,  hoping  for  a  place  where  I  could 
put  in  my  oar.  But  my  hand  was  out  at  teaching, 
and  in  a  time  when  all  the  world's  veneers  of  different 
kinds  were  ripping  off,  nobody  wanted  me  to  put  on 
more  of  my  kind,  —  so  that  my  cash  ran  low.  I 
would  not  go  in  debt, — that  is  a  thing  I  never  did. 
More  honest,  I  say,  to  go  to  the  poorhouse,  and  make 
the  Public  care  for  its  child  there,  than  to  borrow  what 
you  cannot  pay.  But  I  did  not  come  quite  to  that,  as 
you  shall  see. 

I  was  counting  up  my  money  one  night,  —  and  it 
was  easily  done,  —  when  I  observed  that  the  date  on 
this  Burrham  order  was  the  15th  of  October,  and  it 
occurred  to  me  that  it  was  not  quite  a  fortnight  before 
those  books  were  to  be  delivered.  They  were  to  be 
delivered  at  Castle  Garden,  at  New  York ;  and  the 
thought  struck  me  that  I  might  go  to  New  York,  try  my 
chance  there  for  work,  and  at  least  see  the  city,  which 
I  had  never  seen,  and  get  my  cyclopaedia  and  maga- 
zine. It  was  the  least  offer  the  Public  ever  made  to 
me  ;  but  just  then  the  Public  was  in  a  collapse,  and  the 
least  was  better  than  nothing.  The  plan  of  so  long  a 
journey  was  Quixotic  enough,  and  I  hesitated  about  it 
a  good  deal.  Finally  I  came  to  this  resolve :  I  would 
start  in  the  morning  to  walk  to  the  lock-station  at 
Brockport  on  the  canal.     If  a  boat  passed  that  7 light 


216        THE  CHILDEEN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

where  they  would  give  me  my  fare  for  any  work  1 
could  do  for  them,  I  would  go  to  Albany.  If  not,  I 
would  walk  back  to  Lockport  the  next  day,  and  try 
my  fortune  there.  This  gave  me,  for  my  first  day's 
enterprise,  a  foot  journey  of  about  twenty-five  miles. 
It  was  out  of  the  question,  with  my  finances,  for  me 
to  think  of  compassing  the  train. 

Every  point  of  life  is  a  pivot  on  which  turns  the 
whole  action  of  our  after-lives  ;  and  so,  indeed,  of  the 
after-lives  of  the  whole  world.  But  we  are  so  pur- 
blind that  we  only  see  this  of  certain  special  enter- 
prises and  endeavors,  which  we  therefore  call  critical. 
I  am  sure  I  see  it  of  that  twenty-five  miles  of  fresh 
Autumnal  walking.  I  was  in  tiptop  spirits.  I  found 
the  air  all  oxygen,  and  everything  "  ad  right."  I  did 
not  loiter,  and  I  did  not  hurry.  I  swung  along  with 
the  feeling  that  every  nerve  and  muscle  drew,  as  in 
the  trades  a  sailor  feels  of  every  rope  and  sail.  And 
so  I  was  not  tired,  not  thirsty,  till  the  brook  appeared 
where  I  was  to  drink  ;  nor  hungry  till  twelve  o'clock 
came,  when  I  was  to  dine.  I  called  myself  as  I 
walked  "  The  Child  of  Good  Fortune,"  because  the 
sun  was  on  my  right  quarter,  as  the  sun  should  be 
when  you  walk,  because  the  rain  of  yesterday  had 
laid  the  dust  for  me,  and  the  frost  of  yesterday  had 
painted  the  hills  for  me,  and  the  northwest  wind 
cooled  the  air  for  me.  I  came  to  Wilkie's  Cross-Roada 
just  in  time  to  meet  the  Claremont  baker  and  buy  my 
dinner  loaf  of  him.     And  when  ray  walk  was  nearly 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        217 

done,  1  came  out  on  the  low  bridge  at  Sewell's,  which 
is  a  drawbridge,  just  before  they  raised  it  for  a  passing 
boat,  instead  of  the  moment  after.  Because  I  was  all 
right  I  felt  myself  and  called  myself  "  The  Child  of  Good 
Fortune."  Dear  reader,  in  a  world  made  by  a  loving 
Father,  we  are  all  of  us  children  of  good  fortune,  if  we 
only  have  wit  enough  to  find  it  out,  as  we  stroll  along. 
The  last  stroke  of  good  fortune  which  that  day  had 
for  me  was  the  solution  of  my  question  whether  or  no 
I  would  go  to  Babylon.  I  was  to  go  if  any  good-na- 
tured boatman  would  take  me.  This  is  a  question,  Mr. 
Millionnaire,  more  doubtful  to  those  who  have  not 
drawn  their  dividends  than  to  those  who  have.  As  I 
came  down  the  village  street  at  Brockport,  I  could  see 
the  horses  of  a  boat  bound  eastward,  led  along  from 
level  to  level  at  the  last  lock  ;  and,  in  spite  of  my  de- 
termination not  to  hurry,  I  put  myself  on  the  long, 
loping  trot  which  the  St.  Regis  Indians  taught  me, 
that  I  might  overhaul  this  boat  before  she  got  under 
way  at  her  new  speed.  I  came  out  on  the  upper  gate 
of  the  last  lock  just  as  she  passed  out  from  the  lower 
gate.  The  horses  were  just  put  on,  and  a  reckless  boy 
gave  them  their  first  blow  after  two  hours  of  rest  and 
corn.  As  the  heavy  boat  started  off  under  the  new 
motion,  I  saw,  and  her  skipper  saw  at  the  same  in- 
stant, that  a  long  new  tow-rope  of  his,  which  had  lain 
coiled  on  deck,  was  suddenly  flying  out  to  its  full 
length.  The  outer  end  of  it  had  been  carried  upon 
the  lock-side  by  some  chance  or  blunder,   and  there 

10 


218  THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC. 

some  idle  loafer  had  thrown  the  looped  bight  of  il 
over  a  hawser-post.  The  loafers  on  the  lock  saw,  as  I 
did,  that  the  rope  was  running  out,  and  at  the  call  of 
the  skipper  one  of  them  condescended  to  throw  the 
loop  overboard,  but  he  did  it  so  carelessly  that  the  lazy 
rope  rolled  over  into  the  lock,  and  the  loop  caught  on 
one  of  the  valve-irons  of  the  upper  gate.  The  whole 
was  the  business  of  an  instant,  of  course.  But  the 
poor  skipper  saw,  what  we  did  not,  that  the  coil  of  the 
rope  on  deck  was  foul,  and  so  entangled  round  his  long 
tiller,  that  ten  seconds  would  do  one  of  three  things,  — 
they  would  snap  his  new  rope  in  two,  which  was  a  tri 
fie,  or  they  would  wrench  his  tiller-head  off  the  rudder, 
which  would  cost  him  an  hour  to  mend,  or  they  would 
upset  those  two  horses,  at  this  instant  on  a  trot,  and 
put  into  the  canal  the  rowdy  youngster  who  had  start- 
ed them.  It  was  this  complex  certainty  which  gave  fire 
to  the  double  cries  which  he  addressed  aft  to  us  on 
the  lock,  and  forward  to  the  magnet  boy,  whose  indif- 
ferent intelligence  at  that  moment  drew  him  along;. 

I  was  stepping  upon  the  gate-head  to  walk  across  it. 
It  took  but  an  instant,  not  nearly  all  the  ten  seconds, 
to  swing  down  by  my  arms  into  the  lock,  keeping  my- 
self hanging  by  my  hands,  to  catch  with  my  right  foot 
the  bight  of  the  rope  and  lift  it  off  the  treacherous 
iron,  to  kick  the  whole  into  the  water,  and  then  to 
scramble  up  the  wet  lock-side  again.  I  got  a  little- 
wet,  but  that  was  nothing.  I  ran  down  the  tow-path, 
beckoned  to  the  skipper,  who  sheered  his  boat  up  to 
the  shore,  and  I  jumped  on  board. 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        219 

At  that  moment,  reader,  Fausta  was  sitting  in  a 
yellow  chair  on  the  deck  of  that  musty  old  boai, 
crocheting  from  a  pattern  in  Grodey's  Lady's  Book. 
I  remember  it  as.  I  remember  my  breakfast  of  this 
morning.  Not  that  I  fell  in  love  with  her,  nor  did  I 
fall  in  love  with  my  breakfast ;  but  I  knew  she  waa 
there.  And  that  was  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  her. 
It  is  many  years  since,  and  I  have  seen  her  every  day 
from  that  evening  to  this  evening.  But  I  had  then  no 
business  with  her.  My  affair  was  with  him  whom  I  have 
called  the  skipper,  by  way  of  adapting  this  fresh-water 
narrative  to  ears  accustomed  to  Marryat  and  Tom 
Cringle.  I  told  him  that  I  had  to  go  to  New  York ; 
that  I  had  not  time  to  walk,  and  had  not  money  to 
pay ;  that  I  should  like  to  work  my  passage  to  Troy, 
if  there  were  any  way  in  which  I  could ;  and  to  ask 
him  this  I  had  come  on  board. 

"  Waal,"  said  the  skipper,  "  'taint  much  that  is  to 
be  done,  and  Zekiel  and  I  calc'late  to  do  most  of  that 
and  there  's  that  blamed  boy  beside  —  " 

This  adjective  "  blamed  "  is  the  virtuous  oath  by 
which  simple  people,  who  are  improving  their  habits, 
cure  themselves  of  a  stronger  epithet,  as  men  take  to 
flagroot  who  are  abandoning  tobacco. 

"  He  ain't  good  for  nothin',  as  you  see,"  continued 
the  skipper  meditatively,  "  and  you  air,  anybody  can 
see  that,"  he  added.  "  Ef  you  've  mind  to  come  to 
Albany,  you  can  have  your  vittles,  poor  enough  they 
are  too ;  and  ef  you  are  willing  to  ride  sometimes,  you 


220  1HE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC. 

can  ride.  I  guess  where  there  's  rcom  for  three  m  tht- 
bunks  there  's  room  for  four.  'Taint  everybody  would 
have  cast  off  that  Mamed  hawser-rope  as  neat  as  you 
did." 

From  which  last  remark  I  inferred,  what  I  learned 
as  a  certainty  as  we  travelled  farther,  that  but  for  the 
timely  assistance  I  had  rendered  him  I  should  have 
plead  for  my  passage  in  vain. 

This  was  my  introduction  to  Fausta.  That  is  to 
say,  she  heard  the  whole  of  the  conversation.  The 
formal  introduction,  which  is  omitted  in  no  circle  of 
American  life  to  which  I  have  ever  been  admitted, 
took  place  at  tea  half  an  hour  after,  when  Mrs.  Grills, 
who  always  voyaged  with  her  husband,  brought  in 
the  flapjacks  from  the  kitchen.  "  Miss  Jones,"  said 
Grills,  as  I  came  into  the  meal,  leaving  Zekiel  at  the 
tiller,  —  "  Miss  Jones,  this  is  a  young  man  who  is  going 
to  Albany.  I  don't  rightly  know  how  to  call  your 
name,  sir."  I  said  my  name  was  Carter.  Then  he 
said,  "  Mr.  Carter,  this  is  Miss  Jones.  Mrs.  Grills, 
Mr.  Carter.  Mr.  Carter,  Mrs.  Grills.  She  is  my 
wife."  And  so  our  partie  carree  was  established  for 
the  voyage. 

In  these  days  there  are  few  people  who  know  that 
a  journey  on  a  canal  is  the  pleasantest  journey  in  the 
world.  A  canal  has  to  go  through  fine  scenery.  It 
cannot  exist  unless  it  follow  through  the  valley  of  a 
stream.  The  movement  is  so  easy  that,  with  youi 
eyes  shut,  you  do  not  know  you  move.     The  route  is 


THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  22"j 

so  direct,  that  when  you  are  once  shielded  from  the 
sun,  you  are  safe  for  hours.  You  draw,  you  read, 
you  write,  or  you  sew,  crochet,  or  knit.  You  play  on 
your  flute  or  your  guitar,  without  one  hint  of  incon- 
venience. At  a  "  low  bridge  "  you  duck  your  head 
lest  you  lose  your  hat,  —  and  that  reminder  teaches 
you  that  you  are  human.  You  are  glad  to  know  this, 
and  you  laugh  at  the  memento.  For  the  rest  of  the 
time  you  journey,  if  you  are  "  all  right "  within,  in 
elysium. 

I  rode  one  of  those  horses  perhaps  two  or  three 
hours  a  day.  At  locks  I  made  myself  generally  useful. 
At  night  I  walked  the  deck  till  one  o'clock,  with  my 
pipe  or  without  it,  to  keep  guard  against  the  lock- 
thieves.  The  skipper  asked  me  sometimes,  after  he 
found  I  could  "  cipher,"  to  disentangle  some  of  the 
knots  in  his  bills  of  lading  for  him.  But  all  this  made 
but  a  little  inroad  in  those  lovely  autumn  days,  and 
for  the  eight  days  that  we  glided  along,  —  there  is  one 
blessed  level  which  is  seventy  miles  long,  —  I  spent 
most  of  my  time  with  Fausta.  We  walked  together 
on  the  tow-path  to  get  our  appetites  for  dinner  and 
for  supper.  At  sunrise  I  always  made  a  cruise  inland, 
and  collected  the  gentians  and  black  alder-berries  and 
colored  leaves,  with  which  she  dressed  Mrs.  Grill's 
table.  She  took  an  interest  in  my  wretched  sketch- 
book, and  though  she  did  not  and  does  not  draw  well, 
she  did  show  me  how  to  spread  an  even  tint,  which  1 
never  knew  before.     I  was  working  up  my  French, 


222        THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

She  knew  about  as  much  and  as  little  as  1  did,  and 
we  read  Mad.  Reybaud's  Clementine  together,  guess- 
ing at  the  hard  words,  because  we  had  no  dictionary. 

Dear  old  Grill  offered  to  talk  French  at  table,  and 
we  tried  it  for  a  few  days.  But  it  proved  he  picked 
up  his  pronunciation  at  St.  Catherine's,  among  the 
boatmen  there,  and  he  would  say  shwo  for  "horses," 
where  the  book  said  chevaux.  Our  talk,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  not  Parisian,  —  but  it  was  not 
Catherinian,  —  and  we  subsided  into  English  again. 

So  sped  along  these  blessed  eight  days.  I  told 
Fausta  thus  much  of  my  story,  that  I  was  going  to 
seek  my  fortune  in  New  York.  She,  of  course,  knew 
nothing  of  me  but  what  she  saw,  and  she  told  me 
nothing  of  her  story. 

But  I  was  very  sorry  when  we  came  into  the  basin 

at  Troy,  for  I  knew  then  that  in  all  reason  I  must 

take  the  steamboat  down.     And  I  was  very  glad,  —  I 

have  seldom  in  my  life  been  so  glad,  —  when  I  found 

that  she  also  was  going  to  New  York  immediately. 

She  accepted,  very  pleasantly,  my  offer  to  carry  her 

trunk  to  the  Isaac  Newton  for  her,  and  to  act  as  her 

escort  to  the  city.     For  me,  my  trunk, 

"  in  danger  tried," 
Swung  in  my  hand,  —  "  nor  left  my  side." 

My  earthly  possessions  were  few  anywhere.  I  had 
left  at  Attica  most  of  what  they  were.  Through  the 
voyage  I  had  been  man  enough  to  keep  on  a  working- 
gear  fit  for  a  workman's  duty.     And  old  Grills  had  not 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        223 

yet  grace  enough  to  keep  his  boat  still  on  Sunday 
How  one  remembers  little  things !  I  can  remember 
each  touch  of  the  toilet,  as,  in  that  corner  of  a  dark 
cuddy  where  I  had  shared  "Zekiel's"  bunk  with  him. 
I  dressed  myself  with  one  of  my  two  white  shirts,  and 
with  the  change  of  raiment  which  had  been  tight 
squeezed  in  my  portmanteau.  The  old  overcoat  was 
the  best  part  of  it,  as  in  a  finite  world  it  often  is.  I 
sold  my  felt  hat  to  Zekiel,  and  appeared  with  a  light 
travelling-cap.  I  do  not  know  how  Fausta  liked  my 
metamorphosis.  I  only  know  that,  like  butterflies, 
for  a  day  or  two  after  they  go  through  theirs,  I  felt 
decidedly  cold. 

As  Carter,  the  canal  man,  I  had  carried  Fausta'a 
trunk  on  board.  As  Mr.  Carter,  I  gave  her  my  arm, 
led  her  to  the  gangway  of  the  Newton,  took  her  pas- 
sage and  mine,  and  afterwards  walked  and  sat  through 
the  splendid  moonlight  of  the  first  four  hours  down 
the  river. 

Miss  Jones  determined  that  evening  to  breakfast  on 
the  boat.  Be  it  observed  that  I  did  not  then  know 
her  by  any  other  name.  She  was  to  go  to  an  aunt's 
house,  and  she  knew  that  if  she  left  the  boat  on  its 
early  arrival  in  New  York,  she  would  disturb  that 
lady  by  a  premature  ringing  at  her  bell.  I  had  no 
reason  for  haste,  as  the  reader  knows.  The  distribu- 
tion of  the  cyclopaedias  was  not  to  take  place  till  the 
next  day,  and  that  absurd  trifle  was  the  only  distinct 
excuse  I  had  to  myself  for  being  in  New  York  at  all, 


224  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

I  asked  Miss  Jones,  therefore,  if  I  might  not  be  hei 
escort  still  to  her  aunt's  house.  I  had  said  it  would 
be  hard  to  break  off  our  pleasant  journey  before  I  had 
seen  where  she  lived,  and  I  thought  she  seemed 
relieved  to  know  that  she  should  not  be  wholly  a 
stranger  on  her  arrival.  It  was  clear  enough  that  her 
aunt  would  send  no  one  to  meet  her. 

These  preliminaries  adjusted,  we  parted  to  our 
respective  cabins.  And  when,  the  next  morning,  at 
that  unearthly  hour  demanded  by  Philadelphia  trains 
and  other  exigencies,  the  Newton  made  her  dock,  1 
rejoiced  that  breakfast  was  not  till  seven  o'clock,  that 
I  had  two  hours  more  of  the  berth,  which  was  luxury 
compared  to  Zekiel's  bunk,  —  I  turned  upon  my  other 
side  and  slept  on. 

Sorry  enough  for  that  morning  nap  was  I  for  the 
next  thirty-six  hours.  For  when  I  went  on  deck,  and 
sent  in  the  stewardess  to  tell  Miss  Jones  that  I  was 
waiting  for  her,  and  then  took  from  her  the  check  for 
her  trunk,  I  woke  to  the  misery  of  finding  that,  in 
that  treacherous  two  hours,  some  pirate  from  the  pier 
had  stepped  on  board,  had  seized  the  waiting  trunk, 
left  almost  alone,  while  the  baggage-master's  back  was 
turned,  and  that,  to  a  certainty,  it  was  lost.  I  did  not 
return  to  Fausta  with  this  story  till  the  breakfast-bell 
had  long  passed  and  the  breakfast  was  very  cold.  1 
did  not  then  tell  it  to  her  till  I  had  seen  her  eat  her 
breakfast  with  an  appetite  much  better  than  mine.  I 
had  alreadv  offered  up  stairs  the  largest  reward  to  any- 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        225 

body  who  would  bring  it  back  which  my  scanty  pnrse 
would  pay.  I  had  spoken  to  the  clerk,  who  had  sent 
for  a  policeman.  I  could  do  nothing  more,  and  I  did 
not  choose  to  ruin  her  chop  and  coffee  by  ill-timed 
news.  The  officer  came  before  breakfast  was  over, 
and  called  me  from  table. 

On  the  whole,  his  business-like  way  encouraged 
one.  He  had  some  clews  which  I  had  not  thought 
possible.  It  was  not  unlikely  that  they  should  pounce 
on  the  trunk  before  it  was  broken  open.  I  gave  him 
a  written  description  of  its  marks  ;  and  when  he  civilly 
a^ked  if  "  my  lady  "  would  give  some  description  of 
any  books  or  other  articles  within,  I  readily  promised 
that  I  would  call  with  such  a  description  at  the  police 
station.  Somewhat  encouraged,  I  returned  to  Miss 
Jones,  and,  when  I  led  her  from  the  breakfast-table, 
told  her  of  her  misfortune.  I  took  all  shame  to  my- 
self for  my  own  carelessness,  to  which  I  attributed  the 
loss.  But  I  told  her  all  that  the  officer  had  said  to 
me,  and  that  I  hoped  to  bring  her  the  trunk  at  her 
aunt's  before  the  day  was  over. 

Fausta  took  my  news,  however,  with  a  start  which 
frightened  me.  All  her  money,  but  a  shilling  or  two, 
was  in  the  trunk.  To  place  money  in  trunks  is  a 
weakness  of  the  female  mind  which  I  have  nowhere 
seen  accounted  for.  Worse  than  this,  though,  ■ —  af 
appeared  after  a  moment's  examination  of  her  travel- 
ling sac, — her  portfolio  in  the  trunk  contained  the 
letter  of  the  aunt  whom  she  came  to  visit,  giving  her 

10* 


226  THE  CHILDKEN   OF  THE   PUBLIC. 

her  address  in  the  city.  To  this  address  she  had  no 
other  clew  but  that  her  aunt  was  Mrs.  Mary  Mason, 
had  married  a  few  years  before  a  merchant  named 
Mason,  whom  Miss  Jones  had  never  seen,  and  of 
whose  name  and  business  this  was  all  she  knew.  They 
lived  in  a  numbered  street,  but  whether  it  was  Fourth 
Street,  or  Fifty-fourth,  or  One  Hundred  and  Twenty- 
fourth,  or  whether  it  was  something  between,  the 
poor  child  had  no  idea.  She  had  put  up  the  letter 
carefully,  but  had  never  thought  of  the  importance  of 
the  address.  Besides  this  aunt,  she  knew  no  human 
being  in  New  York. 

"  Child  of  the  Public,"  I  said  to  myself,  <i  what  do 
you  do  now  ?  "  I  had  appealed  to  my  great  patron  in 
sending  for  the  officer,  and  on  the  whole  I  felt  that 
my  sovereign  had  been  gracious  to  me,  if  not  yet 
hopeful.  But  now  I  must  rub  my  lamp  again,  and 
ask  the  genie  where  the  unknown  Mason  lived.  The 
genie  of  course  suggested  the  Directory,  and  I  ran  for 
it  to  the  clerk's  office.  But  as  we  were  toiling  down 
the  pages  of  "  Masons,"  and  had  written  off  thirteen 
or  fourteen  who  lived  in  numbered  streets,  Fausta 
started,  looked  back  at  the  preface  and  its  date,  flung 
down  her  pencil  in  the  only  abandonment  of  dismay  in 
which  I  ever  saw  her,  and  cried,  "  First  of  May  1 
They  were  abroad  until  May.  They  have  been 
abroad  since  the  day  they  were  married  !  "  So  that 
genie  had  to  put  his  glories  into  his  pocket,  and  carry 
his  Directory  back  to  the  office  again. 


THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  227 

The  natural  thing  to  propose  was,  that  I  should 
find  for  Miss  Jones  a  respectable  boarding-house,  and 
that  she  should  remain  there  until  her  trunk  was 
found,  or  till  she  could  write  to  friends  who  had  this 
fatal  address,  and  receive  an  answer.  But  here  she 
hesitated.  She  hardly  liked  to  explain  why,  —  did  not 
explain  wholly.  But  she  did  not  say  that  she  had 
no  friends  who  knew  this  address.  She  had  but  few 
relations  in  the  world,  and  her  aunt  had  communicated 
with  her  alone  since  she  came  from  Europe.  As  for 
the  boarding-house,  "  I  had  rather  look  for  work,"  she 
said  bravely.  "  I  have  never  promised  to  pay  money 
when  I  did  not  know  how  to  obtain  it;  and  that"  — 
and  here  she  took  out  fifty  or  sixty  cents  from  her 
purse  —  "  and  that  is  all  now.  In  respectable  board 
ing-houses,  when  people  come  without  luggage,  they 
are  apt  to  ask  for  an  advance.  Or,  at  least,"  she  added, 
with  some  pride,  "  I  am  apt  to  offer  it." 

I  hastened  to  ask  her  to  take  all  my  little  store ;  but 
I  had  to  own  that  I  had  not  two  dollars.  I  was  sure, 
however,  that  my  overcoat  and  the  dress-suit  I  wore 
would  avail  me  something,  if  I  thrust  them  boldly  up 
some  spout.  I  was  sure  that  I  should  be  at  work 
within  a  day  or  two.  At  all  events,  I  was  certain  of 
the  cyclopaedia  the  next  day.  That  should  go  to  old 
Gowan's, — in  Fulton  Street  it  was  then, — uthe  moral 
centre  of  the  intellectual  world,"  in  the  hour  I  got  it. 
And  at  this  moment,  for  the  first  time,  the  thought 
crossed  me,  "  If  mine  could  only  be  the  name  drawn, 


228  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

so  that  that  foolish  $  5,000  should  fall  to  me."  In  that 
case  I  felt  that  Fausta  might  live  in  "  a  respectable 
bjarding-house  "  till  she  died.  Of  this,  of  course,  I 
said  nothing,  only  that  she  was  welcome  to  my  poor 
dollar  and  a  half,  and  that  I  should  receive  the  next 
day  some  more  money  that  was  due  me. 

"  You  forget,  Mr.  Carter,"  replied  Fausta,  aa 
proudly  as  before,  —  "  you  forget  that  I  cannot  borrow 
of  you  any  more  than  of  a  boarding-house-keeper.  I 
never  borrow.  Please  God,  I  never  will.  It  must 
be,"  she  added,  "  that  in  a  Christian  city  like  this 
there  is  some  respectable  and  fit  arrangement  made 
for  travellers  who  find  themselves  where  I  am.  What 
that  provision  is  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  will  find  out 
what  it  is  before  this  sun  goes  down." 

I  paused  a  moment  before  I  replied.  If  I  had  been 
fascinated  by  this  lovely  girl  before,  I  now  bowed  in 
respect  before  her  dignity  and  resolution ;  and,  with 
my  sympathy,  there  was  a  delicious  throb  of  self-re- 
spect united,  when  I  heard  her  lay  down  so  simply,  as 
principles  of  her  life,  two  principles  on  which  I  had 
always  myself  tried  to  live.  The  half-expressed  habits 
of  my  boyhood  and  youth  were  now  uttered  for  me  as 
axioms  by  lips  which  I  knew  could  speak  nothing  but 
right  and  truth. 

I  paused  a  moment.  I  stumbled  a  little  as  I  ex- 
pressed my  regret  that  she  would  not  let  me  help  her, 
— joined  with  my  certainty  that  she  was  in  the  right 
in  refusing,  —  and  then,  it  the  only  stiff  speech  I  evei 
made  to  her,  I  said :  — 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        229 

**  I  am  the  i  Child  of  the  Public'  If  you  ever  hear 
my  story,  you  will  say  so  too.  At  the  least,  I  can 
claim  this,  that  I  have  a  right  to  help  you  in  your 
quest  as  to  the  way  in  which  the  public  will  help  you. 
Thus  far  I  am  clearly  the  officer  in  his  suite  to  whom 
he  has  intrusted  you.  Are  you  ready,  then,  to  go  on 
shore  ?  " 

Fausta  looked  around  on  that  forlorn  ladies'  saloon, 

as  if  it  were  the  last  link  holding  her  to  her  old  safe 

world. 

"  Looked  upon  skylight,  lamp,  and  chain. 
As  what  she  ne'er  might  see  again." 

Then  she  looked  right  through  me ;  and  if  there  had 
been  one  mean  thought  in  me  at  that  minute,  she 
would  have  seen  the  viper.     Then  she  said,  sadly,  — 

"  I  have  perfect  confidence  in  you,  though  people 
would  say  we  were  strangers.     Let  us  go." 

And  we  left  the  boat  together.  We  declined  the 
invitations  of  the  noisy  hackmen,  and  walked  slowly  to 
Broadway. 

We  stopped  at  the  station-house  for  that  district, 
and  to  the  attentive  chief  Fausta  herself  described 
those  contents  of  her  trunk  which  she  thought  would 
be  most  easily  detected,  if  offered  for  sale.  Her  moth- 
er's Bible,  at  which  the  chief  shook  his  head  ;  Bibles, 
alas  !  brought  nothing  at  the  shops  ;  a  soldier's  medal, 
such  as  were  given  as  target  prizes  by  the  Mont- 
gomery regiment ;  and  a  little  silver  canteen,  marked 
with  the  device  of  the  same  regiment,  seemed  to  him 


230  THE   CHILDEEN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

better  worthy  of  note.  Her  portfolio  was  wrought 
with  a  cipher,  and  she  explained  to  him  that  she  was 
most  eager  that  this  should  be  recovered.  The  pocket- 
book  contained  more  than  one  hundred  dollars,  which 
she  described,  but  he  shook  his  head  here,  and  gave 
her  but  little  hope  of  that,  if  the  trunk  were  once 
opened.     His  chief  hope  was  for  this  morning. 

"  And  where  shall  we  send  to  you  then,  madam  ?" 
said  he. 

I  had  been  proud,  as  if  it  were  my  merit,  of  the 
impression  Fausta  had  made  upon  the  officer,  in  her 
quiet,  simple,  ladylike  dress  and  manner.  For  my- 
self, I  thought  that  one  slip  of  pretence  in  my  dress  or 
bearing,  a  scrap  of  gold  or  of  pinchbeck,  would  have 
ruined  both  of  us  in  our  appeal.  But,  fortunately,  I 
did  not  disgrace  her,  and  the  man  looked  at  her  as  if 
he  expected  her  to  say  "  Fourteenth  Street."  What 
would  she  say  ? 

"  That  depends  upon  what  the  time  will  be.  Mr. 
Carter  will  call  at  noon,  and  will  let  you  know." 

We  bowed,  and  were  gone.  In  an  instant  more 
she  begged  my  pardon,  almost  with  tears ;  but  I  told 
her  that  if  she  also  had  been  a  "  Child  of  the  Public," 
she  could  not  more  fitly  have  spoken  to  one  of  her 
father's  officers.  I  begged  her  to  use  me  as  her  pro- 
tector, and  not  to  apologize  again.  Then  we  laid  out 
the  plans  which  we  followed  out  that  day. 

The  officer's  manner  had  reassured  her,  ana  I  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  her  that  it  was  certain  we  should 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        231 

have  the  trunk  at  noon.  How  much  better  to  wait,  at 
least  so  far,  before  she  entered  on  any  of  the  enter- 
prises of  which  she  talked  so  coolly,  as  of  offering  her- 
self as  a  nursery-girl,  or  as  a  milliner,  to  whoevei 
would  employ  her,  if  only  she  could  thus  secure  an 
honest  home  till  money  or  till  aunt  were  found.  Once 
persuaded  that  we  were  safe  from  this  Quixotism,  I 
told  her  that  we  must  go  on,  as  we  did  on  the  canal, 
and  first  we  must  take  our  constitutional  walk  for  two 
hours. 

"  At  least,"  she  said,  "  our  good  papa,  the  Public, 
gives  us  wonderful  sights  to  see,  and  good  walking  to 
our  feet,  as  a  better  Father  has  given  us  this  heavenly 
sky  and  this  bracing  air." 

And  with  those  words  the  last  heaviness  of  despond- 
ency left  her  face  for  that  day.  And  we  plunged  into 
the  delicious  adventure  of  exploring  a  new  city, 
staring  into  windows  as  only  strangers  can,  revelling 
in  print-shops  as  only  they  do,  really  seeing  the  fine 
buildings  as  residents  always  forget  to  do,  and  laying 
up,  in  short,  with  those  streets,  nearly  all  the  asso- 
ciations which  to  this  day  we  have  with  them. 

Two  hours  of  this  tired  us  with  walking,  of  course. 
1  do  not  know  what  she  meant  to  do  next ;  but  at  ten 
I  said,  "  Time  for  French,  Miss  Jones."  "  Ah  oid" 
said  she,  ''  mais  ou?"  and  I  had  calculated  my  dis- 
tances, and  led  her  at  once  into  Lafayette  Place  ;  and, 
in  a  moment,  pushed  open  the  door  of  the  Astor 
Library,   led   her   up   the   main   stairway,  and  said, 


232  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

u  This  is  what  the  Public  provides  for  his  children 
when  they  have  to  study." 

"  This  is  the  Astor,"  said  she,  delighted.  "  And 
we  are  all  right,  as  you  say,  here  ?  "  Then  she  saw 
that  our  entrance  excited  no  surprise  among  the  few 
readers,  men  and  women,  who  were  beginning  to  as- 
semble. 

We  took  our  seats  at  an  unoccupied  table,  and 
began  to  revel  in  the  luxuries  for  which  we  had  only 
to  ask  that  we  might  enjoy.  I  had  a  little  memoran- 
dum of  books  which  I  had  been  waiting  to  see.  She 
needed  none ;  but  looked  for  one  and  another,  and  yet 
another,  and  between  us  we  kept  the  attendant  well  in 
motion.  A  pleasant  thing  to  me  to  be  finding  out  her 
thoroughbred  tastes  and  lines  of  work,  and  I  was 
happy  enough  to  interest  her  in  some  of  my  pet  read- 
ings ;  and,  of  course,  for  she  was  a  woman,  to  get 
quick  hints  which  had  never  dawned  on  me  before.  A 
very  short  hour  and  a  half  we  spent  there  before  I 
went  to  the  station-house  again.  I  went  very  quickly. 
I  returned  to  her  very  slowly. 

The  trunk  was  not  found.  But  they  were  now 
quite  sure  they  were  on  its  track.  They  felt  certain 
it  had  been  carried  from  pier  to  pier  and  taken  back 
up  the  river.  Nor  was  it  hopeless  to  follow  it.  The 
particular  rascal  who  was  supposed  to  have  it  would 
certainly  stop  either  at  Piermont  or  at  Newburg. 
They  had  telegraphed  to  both  places,  and  were  in 
time  for  both.     "  The  day  boat,  sir,  will  bring  youi 


THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  233 

lady's  trunk,  and  will  bring  me  Rowdy  Rob,  too,  1 
hope,"  said  the  officer.  But  at  the  same  moment,  as 
he  rang  his  bell,  he  learned  that  no  despatch  had  yet 
been  received  from  either  of  the  places  named.  I  did 
not  feel  so  certain  as  he  did. 

But  Fausta  showed  no  discomfort  as  I  told  my 
news  "  Thus  far,"  said  she,  "  the  Public  serves  me 
well.  I  will  borrow  no  trouble  by  want  of  faith." 
And  I  —  as  Dante  would  say  —  and  I,  to  her,  "  will 
you  let  me  remind  you,  then,  that  at  one  we  dine  , 
that  Mrs.  Grills  is  now  placing  the  salt-pork  upon  the 
cabin  table,  and  Mr.  Grills  asking  the  blessing;  and, 
as  this  is  the  only  day  when  I  can  have  the  honor  of 
your  company,  will  you  let  me  show  you  how  a  Child 
of  the  Public  dines,  when  his  finances  are  low?" 

Fausta  laughed,  and  said  again,  less  tragically  than 
before,  "  I  have  perfect  confidence  in  you,"  —  little 
thinking  how  she  started  my  blood  with  the  words  ; 
but  this  time,  as  if  in  token,  she  let  me  take  her  hand 
upon  my  arm,  as  we  walked  down  the  street  together. 

If  we  had  been  snobs,  or  even  if  I  had  been  one, 
I  should  have  taken  her  to  Taylor's,  and  have  spent 
all  the  money  I  had  on  such  a  luncheon  as  neither  of 
us  had  ever  eaten  before.  Whatever  else  I  am,  I  am 
not  a  snob  of  that  sort.  I  show  my  colors.  I  led 
her  into  a  little  cross-street  which  I  had  noticed  in  our 
erratic  morning  pilgrimage.  We  stopped  at  a  German 
baker's.  I  bade  her  sit  down  at  the  neat  marble  table, 
and  I  bought  two  rolls.     She  declined  lager,  which 


234  THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUPLIO. 

I  offered  her  in  fun.  We  took  water  instead,  and 
we  had  dined,  and  had  paid  two  cents  for  our  meal, 
and  had  had  a  very  merry  dinner,  too,  when  the  clock 
struck  two. 

"  And  now,  Mr.  Carter,"  said  she,  "  I  will  steal  no 
more  of  your  day.  You  did  not  come  to  New  York 
to  escort  lone  damsels  to  the  Astor  Library  or  to  din- 
ner. Nor  did  I  come  only  to  see  the  lions  or  to  read 
French.  I  insist  on  your  going  to  your  affairs,  and 
leaving  me  to  mine.  If  you  will  meet  me  at  the 
Library  half  an  hour  before  it  closes,  I  will  thank  you  ; 
till  then,"  with  a  tragedy  shake  of  the  hand,  and  a 
merry  laugh,  "  adieu  !  " 

I  knew  very  well  that  no  harm  could  happen  to  her 
in  two  hours  of  an  autumn  afternoon.  I  was  not  sorry 
for  her  conge,  for  it  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  follow 
my  own  plans.  I  stopped  at  one  or  two  cabinet- 
makers, and  talked  with  the  "jours  "  about  work, 
that  I  might  tell  her  with  trutlr  that  I  had  been  in 
search  of  it; — then  I  sedulously  began  on  calling  upon 
every  man  I  could  reach  named  Mason.  O,  how 
often  1  went  through  one  phase  or  another  of  this 
colloquy  :  — 

"  Is  Mr.  Mason  in  ?  " 

"  That 's  my  name,  sir." 

"  Can  you  give  me  the  address  of  Mr.  Mason  who 
returned  from  Europe  last  May  ?  " 

"  Know  no  such  person,  sir." 

The  reader  can  imagine  how  many  forms  this  dia- 


THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE   PUBLIC.  235 

logue  could  be  repeated  in,  before,  as  I  wrought  my 
way  through  a  long  line  of  dry-goods  cases  to  a  distant 
counting-room,  I  heard  some  one  in  it  say,  "  No, 
madam,  1  know  no  such  person  as  you  describe  " ;  and 
from  the  recess  Fausta  emerged  and  met  me.  Her 
plan  for  the  afternoon  had  been  the  same  with  mine. 
We  laughed  as  we  detected  each  other ;  then  I  told 
her  she  had  had  quite  enough  of  this,  that  it  was  time 
she  should  rest,  and  took  her,  nolens  volens,  into  the 
ladies'  parlor  of  the  St.  Nicholas,  and  bade  her  wait 
there  through  the  twilight,  with  my  copy  of  Clemen- 
tine, till  I  should  return  from  the  police-station.  If 
the  reader  has  ever  waited  in  such  a  place  for  some 
one  to  come  and  attend  to  him,  he  will  understand 
that  nobody  will  be  apt  to  molest  him  when  he  has  not 
asked  for  attention. 

Two  hours  I  left  Fausta  in  the  rocking-chair,  which 
there  the  Public  had  provided  for  her.  Then  I  re- 
turned, sadly  enough.  No  tidings  of  Rowdy  Rob, 
none  of  trunk,  Bible,  money,  letter,  medal,  or  any- 
thing. Still  was  my  district  sergeant  hopeful,  and, 
as  always,  respectful.  But  I  was  hopeless  this  time, 
and  I  knew  that  the  next  day  Fausta  would  be  plung- 
ing into  the  war  with  intelligence-houses  and  adver- 
tisements. For  the  night,  I  was  determined  that  she 
should  spend  it  in  my  ideal  "  respectable  boarding- 
house."  On  my  way  down  town,  I  stopped  in  at  one 
or  two  shops  to  make  inquiries,  and  satisfied  myself 
where  I  would  take  her.    Still  I  thought  it  wisest  thai 


236        THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

we  should  go  after  tea;  and  another  cross- street 
baker,  and  another  pair  of  rolls,  and  another  tap  at  the 
Croton,  provided  that  repast  for  us.  Then  I  told 
Fausta  of  the  respectable  boarding-house,  and  that  she 
must  go  there.  She  did  not  say  no.  But  she  did  say 
she  would  rather  not  spend  the  evening  there.  "  There 
must  be  some  place  open  for  us,"  said  she.  "  There  ! 
there  is  a  church-bell !  The  church  is  always  home. 
Let  us  come  there." 

So  to  "  evening  meeting  "  we  went,  startling  the  sex 
ron  by  arriving  an  hour  early.  If  there  were  any  who 
wondered  what  was  the  use  of  that  Wednesday-even- 
ing service,  we  did  not.  In  a  dark  gallery  pew  we 
sat,  she  at  one  end,  I  at  the  other ;  and,  if  the  whole 
truth  be  told,  each  of  us  fell  asleep  at  once,  and  slept 
till  the  heavy  organ  tones  taught  us  that  the  service 
had  begun.  A  hundred  or  more  people  had  straggled 
in  then,  and  the  preacher,  good  soul,  he  took  for  his 
text,  "  Doth  not  God  care  for  the  ravens  ?  "  I  cannot 
describe  the  ineffable  feeling  of  home  that  came  over 
me  in  that  dark  pew  of  that  old  church.  I  had  never 
been  in  so  large  a  church  before.  I  had  never  heard 
so  heavy  an  organ  before.  Perhaps  I  had  heard  bet- 
ter preaching,  but  never  any  that  came  to  my  occa- 
sions more.  But  it  was  none  of  these  things  which 
moved  me.  It  was  the  fact  that  we  were  just  where 
we  had  a  right  to  be.  No  impudent  waiter  could  ask 
us  why  we  were  sitting  there,  nor  any  petulant  police- 
man propose  that  we  should  push  on.  It  was  God's 
house,  and,  because  his,  it  wa^  his  children's. 


THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE   PUBLIC.  237 

All  this  feeling  of  repose  grew  upon  me,  and,  as  it 
proved,  upon  Fausta  also.  For  when  the  service  was 
ended,  and  1  ventured  to  ask  her  whether  she  also 
had  this  sense  of  home  and  rest,  she  assented  so 
eagerly,  that  I  proposed,  though  with  hesitation,  a 
notion  which  had  crossed  me,  that  I  should  leave  her 
there. 

"  I  cannot  think,"  I  said,  "  of  any  possible  harm 
that  could  come  to  you  before  morning." 

"  Do  you  know,  I  had  thought  of  that  very  same 
thing,  but  I  did  not  dare  tell  you,"  she  said. 

Was  not  I  glad  that  she  had  considered  me  her 
keeper  !  But  I  only  said,  "  At  the  '  respectable 
boarding-house '  you  might  be  annoyed  by  ques- 
tions." 

"  And  no  one  will  speak  to  me  here.  I  know  that 
from  Goody  Two-Shoes." 

"  I  will  be  here,"  said  I,  "  at  sunrise  in  the  morn- 
ing." And  so  I  bade  her  good  by,  insisting  on  leav- 
ing in  the  pew  my  own  great-coat.  I  knew  she  mighl 
need  it  before  morning.  I  walked  out  as  the  sexton 
closed  the  door  below  on  the  last  of  the  down-stairs 
worshippers.  He  passed  along  the  aisles  below,  with 
his  l3ng  poker  which  screwed  down  the  gas.  I  saw  at 
once  that  he  had  no  intent  of  exploring  the  galleries. 
But  I  loitered  outside  till  I  saw  him  lock  the  doors 
and  depart ;  and  then,  happy  in  the  thought  that  Miss 
Jones  was  in  the  safest  place  in  New  York,  —  as  com- 
fortable as  she  was  the  night  before,  and  much  more 


238  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

comfortable  than  she  had  been  any  night  upon  the 
°,anal,  I  went  in  search  of  my  own  lodging. 
"  To  the  respectable  boarding-house  ?  " 
Not  a  bit,  reader.  I  had  no  shillings  for  respectable 
or  disrespectable  boarding-houses.  I  asked  the  first 
policeman  where  his  district  station  was.  I  went  into 
its  office,  and  told  the  captain  that  I  was  green  in  the 
city ;  had  got  no  work  and  no  money.  In  truth,  I 
had  left  my  purse  in  Miss  Jones's  charge,  and  a  five- 
cent  piece,  which  I  showed  the  chief,  was  all  I  had. 
He  said  no  word  but  to  bid  me  go  up  two  flights  and 
turn  into  the  first  bunk  I  found.  I  did  so ;  and  in  five 
minutes  was  asleep  in  a  better  bed  than  I  had  slept  in 
for  nine  days. 

That  was  what  the  Public  did  for  me  that  night. 
I,  too,  was  safe ! 

I  am  making  this  story  too  long.  But  with  that 
n?io;ht  and  its  anxieties  the  end  has  come.  At  sunrise 
T  rose  and  made  my  easy  toilet.  I  bought  and  ate  my 
roll,  —  varying  the  brand  from  yesterday's.  I  bought 
another,  with  a  lump  of  butter,  and  an  orange,  for 
Fausta.  I  left  my  portmanteau  at  the  station,  while  I 
rushed  to  the  sexton's  house,  told  his  wife  I  had  left 
my  gloves  in  church  the  night  before,  —  as  was  the 
truth,  —  and  easily  obtained  from  her  the  keys.  In 
a  moment  I  was  in  the  vestibule  —  locked  in  —  was 
in  the  gallery,  and  there  found  Fausta,  just  awake,  as 
she  declared,  from  a  comfortable  night,  reading  her 
morning  lesson  in  the  Bible,  and  sure,  she  said,  trial 


THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    PUBLIC.  23? 

1  should  soon  appear.  Nor  ghost,  nor  wraith,  nad 
visited  her.  I  spread  for  her  a  brown  paper  table- 
cloth on  the  table  in  the  vestibule.  I  laid  out  her 
breakfast  for  her,  called  her,  and  wondered  at  her 
toilet.  How  is  it  that  women  always  make  themselves 
appear  as  neat  and  finished  as  if  there  were  no  conflict, 
dust,  or  wrinkle  in  the  world. 

[Here  Fausta  adds,  in  this  manuscript,  a  parenthesis, 
to  say  that  she  folded  her  undersleeves  neatly,  and  her 
collar,  before  she  slept,  and  put  them  between  the 
cushions,  upon  which  she  slept.  In  the  morning  they 
had  been  pressed  —  without  a  sad-iron.] 

She  finished  her  repast.  1  opened  the  church  door 
for  five  minutes.  She  passed  out  when  she  had 
enough  examined  the  monuments,  and  at  a  respect- 
able distance  I  followed  her.  We  joined  each  other, 
and  took  our  accustomed  morning  walk  ;  but  then  she 
resolutely  said,  "  Good  by,"  for  the  day.  She  would 
find  work  before  night,  —  work  and  a  home.  And  I 
must  do  the  same.  Only  when  I  pressed  her  to  iet 
me  know  of  her  success,  she  said  she  would  meet  me 
at  the  Astor  Library  just  before  it  closed.  No,  she 
would  not  take  my  money.  Enough,  that  for  twenty- 
four  hours  she  had  been  my  guest.  When  she  had 
found  her  aunt  and  told  her  the  story,  they  should 
insist  on  repaying  this  hospitality.  Hospitality,  dear 
reader,  which  I  had  dispensed  at  the  charge  of  six 
cents.  Have  you  ever  treated  Miranda  for  a  day  and 
found  the  charge  so  low  ?     When  I  urged  other  assist- 


240       THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

ance  she  said  resolutely,  "  No."  In  fact,  she  had 
already  made  an  appointment  at  two,  she  said,  and  she 
must  not  waste  the  day. 

I  also  had  an  appointment  at  two  ;  for  it  was  at  that 
hour  that  Burrham  was  to  distribute  the  cyclopaedias  at 
Castle  Garden.  The  Emigrant  Commission  had  not 
yet  seized  it  for  their  own.  I  spent  the  morning 
in  asking  vainly  for  Masons  fresh  from  Europe,  and 
for  work  in  cabinet-shops.  I  found  neither,  and 
so  wrought  my  way  to  the  appointed  place,  where, 
instead  of  such  wretched  birds  in  the  bush,  I  was  to 
get  one  so  contemptible  in  my  hand. 

Those  who  remember  Jenny  Lind's  first  triumph 
night  at  Castle  Garden  have  some  idea  of  the  crowd 
as  it  filled  gallery  and  floor  of  that  immense  hall  when  I 
entered.  I  had  given  no  thought  to  the  machinery  of 
this  folly.  I  only  know  that  my  ticket  bade  me  be 
there  at  two  p.  M.  this  day.  But  as  I  drew  near,  the 
throng,  the  bands  of  policemen,  the  long  queues  of 
persons  entering,  reminded  me  that  here  was  an  affair 
of  ten  thousand  persons,  and  also  that  Mr.  Burrham 
was  not  unwilling  to  make  it  as  showy,  perhaps  as 
noisy,  an  affair  as  was  respectable,  by  way  of  advertis- 
ing future  excursions  and  distributions.  I  was  led  to 
geat  No.  3,671  with  a  good  deal  of  parade,  and  when  I 
mme  there  I  found  I  was  very  much  of  a  prisoner.  I 
was  late,  or  rather  on  the  stroke  of  two.  ImmediatQly, 
almost,  Mr.  Burrham  arose  in  the  front  and  made 
a  long  speech    about  his    liberality,  and   the  public's 


THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC.  241 

liberality,  and  everybody's  liberality  in  general,  and 
the  method  of  the  distribution  in  particular.  The 
mayor  and  four  or  five  other  well-known  and  respect- 
able gentlemen  were  kind  enough  to  be  present  to 
guarantee  the  fairness  of  the  arrangements.  At  the 
suggestion  of  the  mayor  and  the  police,  the  doors 
would  now  be  closed,  that  no  persons  might  interrupt 
the  ceremony  till  it  was  ended.  And  the  distribution 
of  the  cyclopaedias  would  at  once  go  forward,  in  the 
order  in  which  the  lots  were  drawn, —  earliest  numbers 
securing  the  earliest  impressions ;  which,  as  Mr. 
Burrham  almost  regretted  to  say,  were  a  little  better 
than  the  latest.  After  these  had  been  distributed  two 
figures  would  be  drawn, — one  green  and  one  red,  to 
indicate  the  fortunate  lady  and  gentleman  who  would 
receive  respectively  the  profits  which  had  arisen  from 
this  method  of  selling  the  cyclopaedias,  after  the  ex 
penses  of  printing  and  distribution  had  been  covered, 
and  after  the  magazines  had  been  ordered. 

Great  cheering  followed  this  announcement  from  all 
but  me.  Here  I  had  shut  myself  up  in  this  humbug 
hall,  for  Heaven  knew  how  long,  on  the  most  impor- 
tant day  of  my  life.  I  would  have  given  up  willingly 
my  cyclopaedia  and  my  chance  at  the  "  profits,"  for 
the  certainty  of  seeing  Fausta  at  five  o'clock.  If  i 
did  not  see  her  then,  what  might  befall  her,  and  when 
might  I  see  her  again.  An  hour  before  this  certainty 
was  my  own,  now  it  was  only  mine  by  my  liberating 

myself  from  this  prison.     Still  I  was  encouraged  by 

11 


242  THE   CHILDKEN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

seeing  that  everything  was  conducted  like  clock-work. 
From  literally  a  hundred  stations  they  were  distribut- 
ing the  books.  We  formed  ourselves  into  queues  as 
we  pleased,  drew  our  numbers,  and  then  presented 
ourselves  at  the  bureaux,  ordered  our  magazines,  and 
took  our  cyclopaedias.  It  would  be  done,  at  that  rate, 
by  half  past  four.  An  omnibus  might  bring  me  to 
the  Park,  and  a  Bowery  car  do  the  rest  in  time. 
After  a  vain  discussion  for  the  right  of  exit  with  one 
or  two  of  the  attendants,  I  abandoned  mvself  to  this 
hope,  and  began  studying  my  cyclopaedia. 

It  was  sufficiently  amusing  to  see  ten  thousand  peo- 
ple resign  themselves  to  the  same  task,  and  affect  to  be 
unconcerned  about  the  green  and  red  figures  which 
were  to  divide  the  "  profits."  I  tried  to  make  out  who 
were  as  anxious  to  get  out  of  that  tawdry  den  as  I  was. 
Four  o'clock  struck,  and  the  distribution  was  not  done. 
I  began  to  be  very  impatient.  What  if  Fausta  fell 
into  trouble  ?  I  knew,  or  hoped  I  knew,  that  she  would 
struggle  to  the  Astor  Library,  as  to  her  only  place  of 
rescue  and  refuge,  —  her  asylum.  What  if  I  failed 
her  there  ?  I  who  had  pretended  to  be  her  protector ! 
"  Protector,  indeed !  "  she  would  say,  if  she  knew  I 
was  at  a  theatre  witnessing  the  greatest  folly  of  the 
age.  And  if  I  did  not  meet  her  to-day,  when  should  I 
meet  her  ?  If  she  found  her  aunt,  how  should  I  find 
her?  If  she  did  not  find  her,  —  good  God?  that  was 
worse,  —  where  might  she  not  be  before  twelve  hours 
were  over?     Then  the  fatal  trunk!      I  had  told   th« 


THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    PUBLIC.  24§ 

Dolice  agent  he  might  send  it  to  the  St.  Nicholas,  be- 
cause I  had  to  give  him  some  address.  But  Fausta 
did  not  know  this,  and  the  St.  Nicholas  people  knew 
nothing  of  us.  I  grew  more  and  more  excited,  and 
when  at  last  my  next  neighbor  told  me  that  it  was  half 
past  four,  I  rose  and  insisted  on  leaving  my  seat. 
Two  ushers  with  blue  sashes  almost  held  me  down ; 
they  showed  me  the  whole  assembly  sinking  into 
quiet.  In  fact,  at  that  moment  Mr.  Burrham  was 
begging  every  one  to  be  seated.  I  would  not  be 
seated.  I  would  go  to  the  door.  I  would  go  out. 
"  Go,  if  you  please  !  "  said  the  usher  next  it,  contempt- 
uously. And  I  looked,  and  there  was  no  handle ! 
Yet  this  was  not  a  dream.  It  is  the  way  they  arrange 
the  doors  in  halls  where  they  choose  to  keep  people 
in  their  places.  I  could  have  collared  that  grinning 
blue  sash.  I  did  tell  him  I  would  wring  his  precious 
neck  for  him,  if  he  did  not  let  me  out.  I  said  I  would 
sue  him  for  false  imprisonment ;  I  would  have  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus, 

"  Habeas  corpus  be  d — d  ! "  said  the  officer,  with  an 
irreverent  disrespect  to  the  palladium.  "  If  you  are 
not  more  civil,  sir,  I  will  call  the  police,  of  whom  we 
have  plenty.  You  say  you  want  to  go  out;  you  are 
keeping  everybody  in." 

And,  in  fact,  at  that  moment  the  clear  voice  of  the 
mayor  was  announcing  that  they   would  not  go  on 
until  there  was  perfect  quiet;  and  I  felt  that  I  was  im 
prisoning  all  these  people,  not  they  me. 


244  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  PUBLIC 

•'Child  of  the  Public,"  said  my  mourning  genias, 
"are  you  better  than  other  men?"  So  I  sneaked 
back  to  seat  No.  3,671,  amid  the  contemptuous  and 
reproachful  looks  and  sneers  of  my  more  respectable 
neighbors,  who  had  sat  where  they  were  told  to  do* 
We  must  be  through  in  a  moment,  and  perhaps  Fausta 
would  be  late  also.  If  only  the  Astor  would  keep 
open  after  sunset !  How  often  have  I  wished  that 
since,  and  for  less  reasons ! 

Silence  thus  restored,  Mr.  A ,  the  mayor,  led 

forward  his  little  daughter,  blindfolded  her,  and  bade 
her  put  her  hand  into  a  green  box,  from  which 
she  drew  out  a  green  ticket.  He  took  it  from  her, 
and  read,  in  his  clear  voice  again,  uNo.  2,973!"  By 
this  time  we  all  knew  where  the  utwo  thousands" 
sat.  Then  "nine  hundreds"  were  not  far  from  the 
front,  so  that  it  was  not  far  that  that  frightened  girl, 
dressed  all  in  black,  and  heavily  veiled,  had  to  walk, 

who    answered   to    this  call.      Mr.  A met  her, 

helped  her  up  the  stair  upon  the  stage,  took  from  her 
her  ticket,  and  read,  "  Jerusha  Stillingfleet,  of  Yellow 
Springs,  who,  at  her  death,  as  it  seems,  transferred 
this  right  to  the  bearer." 

The  disappointed  nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  joined  in  a  rapturous  cheer,  each  man  and 
woman,  to  show  that  he  or  she  was  not  disappointed. 
The  bearer  spoke  with  Mr.  Burrham,  in  answer  to  his 
questions,  and,  with  a  good  deal  of  ostentation,  he 
opened  a  check-book,  filled  a  check  an-1   passed  it  to 


THE   CHILDREN    OF   THE   PUBLIC.  245 

ner,  she  signing  a  receipt  as  she  took  it,  and  transfer- 
ring to  him  her  ticket.  So  far,  in  dumb  show,  all  was 
well.  What  was  more  to  my  purpose,  it  was  rapid,  for 
we  should  have  been  done  in  five  minutes  more,  but 
that  some  devil  tempted  some  loafer  in  a  gallery  to 
cry,  "  Face !  face  ! "  Miss  Stillingfleet's  legatee  was 
still  heavily  veiled. 

In  one  horrid  minute  that  whole  amphitheatre, 
which  seemed  to  me  then  more  cruel  than  the  Coliseum 
ever  was,  rang  out  with  a  cry  of  "  Face,  face ! "  I  tried 
the  counter-cry  of  "Shame!  shame!"  but  I  was  in 
disgrace  among  my  neighbors,  and  a  counter-cry 
never  takes  as  its  prototype  does,  either.  At  first,  on 
the  stage,  they  affected  not  to  hear  or  understand  ; 
then  there  was  a  courtly  whisper  between  Mr.  Burr- 
ham  and  the  lady ;  but  Mr.  A ,  the  mayor,  and 

the  respectable  gentlemen,  instantly  interfered.  It 
was  evident  that  she  would  not  unveil,  and  that  they 
were  prepared  to  indorse  her  refusal.  In  a  moment 
more  she  courtesied  to  the  assembly;  the  mayor  gave 
her  his  arm,  and  led  her  out  through  a  side-door. 

O,  the  yell  that  rose  up  then !  The  whole  assembly 
stood  up,  and,  as  if  they  had  lost  some  vested  right, 
hooted  and  shrieked,  "  Back  !   back  !     Face  !   face  !  " 

Mr.   A returned,   made  as    if  he   would  speak, 

came  forward  to  the  very  front,  and  got  a  moment  & 
silence. 

"It  is  not  in  the  bond,  gentlemen, "  said  he.  "  The 
young  lady  is  unwilling  to  unveil,  and  we  must  not 
compel  her." 


246        THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC 

*4  Face  I  face  !  "  was  the  only  answer,  and  oranges 
from  up  stairs  flew  about  his  head  and  struck  upon  the 
table, — an  omen  only  fearful  from  what  it  prophesied. 
Then  there  was  such  a  row  for  five  minutes  as  I  hope 
I  may  never  see  or  hear  again.  People  kept  theii 
places  fortunately,  under  a  vague  impression  that  they 
should  forfeit  some  magic  rights  if  they  left  those  num- 
bered seats.  But  when,  for  a  moment,  a  file  of  police- 
men appeared  in  the  orchestra,  a  whole  volley  of 
cyclopaedias  fell  like  rain  upon  their  chief,  with  a  re- 
newed cry  of  "  Face  !  face  !  " 

At  this  juncture,  with  a  good  deal  of  knowledge  of 

popular  feeling,  Mr.  A led  forward  his  child  again. 

Frightened  to  death  the  poor  thing  was,  and  crying ; 
he  tied  his  handkerchief  round  her  eyes  hastily,  and 
took  her  to  the  red  box.  For  a  minute  the  house  was 
hushed.  A  cry  of  "  Down  !  down  !  "  and  every  one 
took  his  place  as  the  child. gave  the  red  ticket  to  her 
father.  He  read  it  as  before,  "  No.  3,671 !  "  I  heard 
the  words  as  if  he  did  not  speak  them.  All  excited 
by  the  delay  and  the  row,  by  the  injustice  to  the 
stranger  and  the  personal  injustice  of  everybody  to  me, 
I  did  not  know,  for  a  dozen  seconds,  that  every  one 
was  looking  towards  our  side  of  the  house,  nor  was  it 
till  my  next  neighbor  with  the  watch  said,  "  Go,  you 
fool,"  that  I  was  aware  that  3,671  was  I !  Even  then, 
as  I  stepped  down  the  passage  and  up  the  steps,  my 
only  feeling  was,  that  I  should  get  out  of  this  horrid 
trap,  and  possibly  find  Miss  Jones  lingering  near  the 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        24, 

A.stor,  —  not  by  any  means  that  I  was  invited  to  take 
a  check  for  $5,000. 

There  was  not  much  cheering.  Women  never  mean 
to  cheer,  of  course.  The  men  had  cheered  the  green 
ticket,  but  they  were  mad  with  the  red  one.  I  gave 
up  my  ticket,  signed  my  receipt,  and  took  my  check. 

shook  hands  with  Mr.  A and  Mr.  Burrham,  and 

turned  to  bow  to  the  mob,  —  for  mob  I  must  call  it 
now.  But  the  cheers  died  away.  A  few  people  tried 
to  go  out  perhaps,  but  there  was  nothing  now  to  re- 
tain any  in  their  seats  as  before,  and  the  generality 
rose,  pressed  down  the  passages,  and  howled,  "  Face  ! 
face  !  "  I  thought  for  a  moment  that  I  ought  to  say 
something,  but  they  would  not  hear  me,  and,  after  a 
moment's  pause,  my  passion  to  depart  overwhelmed 
me.  I  muttered  some  apology  to  the  gentlemen,  and 
left  the  stage  by  the  stage  door. 

I  had  forgotten  that  to  Castle  Garden  there  can  bt 
no  back  entrance.  I  came  to  door  after  door,  which 
were  all  locked.  It  was  growing  dark.  Evidently 
the  sun  was  set,  and  I  knew  the  library  door  would  be 
shut  at  sunset.  The  passages  were  very  obscure.  All 
around  me  rang  this  horrid  yell  of  the  mob,  in  which 
all  that  I  could  discern  was  the  cry,  "  Face,  face !  " 
At  last,  as  I  groped  round,  I  came  to  a  practicable 
door.  I  entered  a  room  where  the  western  sunset 
glare  dazzled  me.  I  was  not  alone.  The  veiled  lady 
in  black  was  there.  But  the  instant  she  saw  me  she 
sprang  towards  me,  flung  herself  into  my  arms,  and 
cried  :  — 


248  THE    CHILDREN   OF   THE   PUBLIC. 

"Felix,  is  it  you?  —  you  are  indeed  my  protec- 
tor !  " 

It  was  Miss  Jones  !  It  was  Fausta !  She  was  the 
legatee  of  Miss  Stillingfleet.  My  first  thought  was, 
"  O,  if  that  beggarly  usher  had  let  me  go  !  Will  I 
ever,  ever  think  I  have  better  rights  than  the  Public 
again  ?  " 

I  took  her  in  my  arms.  I  earned  her  to  the  sofa. 
I  could  hardly  speak  for  excitement.  Then  I  did  say 
that  I  had  been  wild  with  terror  ;  that  I  had  feared  1 
had  lost  her,  and  lost  her  forever ;  that  to  have  lost 
that  interview  would  have  been  worse  to  me  than 
death ;  for  unless  she  knew  that  I  loved  her  better 
than  man  ever  loved  woman,  I  could  not  face  a  lonely 
night,  and  another  lonely  day. 

u  My  dear,  dear  child,"  I  said,  "  you  may  think  me 
wild  ;  but  I  must  say  this,  —  it  has  been  pent  up  too 
long." 

"  Say  what  you  will,"  she  said  after  a  moment,  in 
which  still  I  held  her  in  my  arms  ;  she  was  trembling 
so  that  she  could  not  have  sat  upright  alone,  —  "  say 
what  you  will,  if  only  you  do  not  tell  me  to  spend  an- 
other day  alone." 

And  I  kissed  her,  and  I  kissed  her,  and  I  kissed  her, 
and  I  said,  "  Never,  darling,  God  helping  me,  till  1 
die!; 

How  long  we  sat  there  I  do  not  know.  Neither  of 
us  spoke  again.  For  one,  I  looked  out  on  the  sunset 
and  the  bay.     We  had  but  just  time  to  rearrange  our- 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        249 

selves  in  positions  more  independent,  when  Mr.  A 

came  in,  this  time  in  alarm,  to  say :  — 

"  Miss  Jones,  we  must  get  you  out  of  this  place,  or 
we  must  hide  you  somewhere.  I  believe,  before  Godt 
they  will  storm  this  passage,  and  pull  the  house  about 
our  ears." 

He  said  this,  not  conscious  as  he  began  that  I  was 
there.  At  that  moment,  however,  I  felt  as  if  I  could 
have  met  a  million  men.  I  started  forward  and  passed 
him,  saying,  "  Let  me  speak  to  them."  I  rushed  upon 
the  stage,  fairly  pushing  back  two  or  three  bullies  who 
were  already  upon  it.  I  sprang  upon  the  table,  kick- 
ing down  the  red  box  as  I  did  so,  so  that  the  red 
tickets  fell  on  the  floor  and  on  the  people  below.  One 
stuck  in  an  old  man's  spectacles  in  a  way  which  made 
the  people  in  the  galleries  laugh.  A  laugh  is  a  great 
blessing  at  such  a  moment.  Curiosity  is  another. 
Three  loud  words  spoken  like  thunder  do  a  good  deal 
more.  And  after  three  words  the  house  was  hushed 
to  hear  me.     I  said  :  — 

"  Be  fair  to  the  girl.  She  has  no  father  nor  mother 
She  has  no  brother  nor  sister.  She  is  alone  in  the 
world,  with  nobody  to  help  her  but  the  Public  —  and 
me  !  " 

The  audacity  of  the  speech  brought  out  a  cheer, 
and  we  should  have  come  off  in  triumph,  when  some 
rowdy  —  the  original  "  face "  man,  I  suppose  — 
said,  — 

"  And  who  are  you  ?  ,y 

11* 


250  THE   CHILDEEN   OF   THE  PUBLIC. 

If  the  laugh  went  against  me  now  1  was  lost,  of 
course.  Fortunately  I  had  no  time  to  think.  1  said 
without  thinking,  — 

" 1  am  the  Child  of  the  Public,  and  her  betrothed 
husband ! " 

0  Heavens !  what  a  yell  of  laughter,  of  hurrahings, 
of  satisfaction  with  a  denouement,  rang  through  the 
house,  and  showed  that  all  was  well.  Burrham 
caught  the  moment,  and  started  his  band,  this  time 
successfully,  —  I  believe  with  "See  the  Conquering 
Hero."  The  doors,  of  course,  had  been  open  long 
before.  Well-disposed  people  saw  they  need  stay  no 
longer ;  ill-disposed  people  dared  not  stay ;  the  blue- 
coated  men  with  buttons  sauntered  on  the  stage  in 
groups,  and  I  suppose  the  worst  rowdies  disappeared 
as  they  saw  them.  I  had  made  my  single  speech,  and 
for  the  moment  I  was  a  hero. 

1  believe  the  mayor  would  have  liked  to  kiss  me. 
Burrham  almost  did.  They  overwhelmed  me  with 
thanks  and  congratulations.  All  these  I  received  as 
well  as  I  could,  —  somehow  I  did  not  feel  at  all  sur 
prised,  —  everything  was  as  it  should  be.  I  scarcely 
thought  of  leaving  the  stage  myself,  till,  to  my  surprise, 
the  mayor  asked  me  to  go  home  with  him  to  dinner. 

Then  I  remembered  that  we  were  not  to  spend  the 
rest  of  our  lives  in  Castle  Garden.  I  blundered  out 
something  about  Miss  Jones,  that  she  had  no  escort 
except  me,  and  pressed  into  her  room  to  find  her.  A 
group  of  gentlemen  was  around  her.     Her  veil  was 


THE   CHILDREN   OP   THE  PUBLIC.  261 

back  now.  She  was  very  pale,  but  very  lovely.  Have 
[  said  that  she  was  beautiful  as  heaven  ?  She  was 
the  queen  of  the  room,  modestly  and  pleasantly  receiv 
ing  their  felicitations  that  the  danger  was  over,  ano1 
owning  that  she  had  been  very  much  frightened. 
<•'  Until,"  she  said,  "  my  friend,  Mr.  Carter,  was  for- 
tunate enough  to  guess  that  I  was  here.  How  he  did 
it,"  she  said,  turning  to  me,  "  is  yet  an  utter  mystery 
to  me." 

She  did  not  know  till  then  that  it  was  I  who  had 
shared  with  her  the  profits  of  the  cyclopaedias. 

As  soon  as  we  could  excuse  ourselves,  I  asked  some 
one  to  order  a  carriage.  I  sent  to  the  ticket-office  for 
my  valise,  and  we  rode  to  the  St.  Nicholas.  I  fairly 
laughed  as  I  gave  the  hackman  at  the  hotel  door  what 
would  have  been  my  last  dollar  and  a  half  only  two 
hours  before.  I  entered  Miss  Jones's  name  and  my 
own.     The  clerk  looked,  and  said,  inquiringly,  — 

"  Is  it  Miss  Jones's  trunk  which  came  this  after- 
noon? " 

I  followed  his  finger  to  see  the  trunk  on  the  marble 
floor.  Rowdy  Rob  had  deserted  it,  having  seen,  per- 
haps, a  detective  when  he  reached  Piermont.  Tha 
trunk  had  gone  to  Albany,  had  found  no  owner,  and 
had  returned  by  the  day  boat  of  that  day. 

Fausta  went  to  her  room,  and  I  sent  her  supper 
after  her.  One  kiss  and  "  Good  night "  was  all  that  I 
got  from  her  then. 

"  In  the  morning,"  said  she,  "  you  shall  explain." 


25^  THE   CHILDREN   OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

It  was  not  yet  seven.  I  went  to  my  own  room  and 
dressed,  and  tendered  myself  at  the  mayor's  just  be- 
fore his  gay  party  sat  down  to  dine.  I  met,  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  men  whose  books  I  had  read,  and 
whose  speeches  I  had  by  heart,  and  women  whom  I 
have  since  known  to  honor  ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  this 

brilliant  group,  so  excited  had  Mr.  A been   in 

telling  the  strange  story  of  the  day,  I  was,  for  the 
hour,  the  lion. 

I  led  Mrs.  A to  the  table  ;   I  made  her  laugh 

very  heartily  by  telling  her  of  the  usher's  threats  to 
me,  and  mine  to  him,  and  of  the  disgrace  into  which  I 
fell  among  the  three  thousand  six  hundreds.  I  had 
never  been  at  any  such  party  before.  But  I  found  it 
was  only  rather  simpler  and  more  quiet  than  most 
parties  I  had  seen,  that  its  good  breeding  was  exactly 
that  of  dear  Betsy  Myers. 

As  the  party  broke  up,  Mrs.  A said  to  me,  — 

"  Mr.  Carter,  I  am  sure  you  are  tired,  with  all  this 
excitement.  You  say  you  are  a  stranger  here.  Let 
me  send  round  for  your  trunk  to  the  St.  Nicholas,  and 
you  shall  spend  the  night  here.  I  know  I  can  make 
you  a  better  bed  than  they." 

I  thought  as  much  myself,  and  assented.     In  half 

an  hour  more  I  was  in  bed  in  Mrs.  A 's  "  best 

room." 

"  I  shall  not  sleep  better,"  said  I  to  myself,  "  than 
I  did  last  night." 

That  was  what  the  Public  did  for  me  that  night  ] 
was  safe  again  ! 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC.        25 O 


CHAPTER    LAST. 

fausta's  story. 

Fausta  slept  late,  poor  child.  I  called  for  he? 
before  breakfast.  I  waited  for  her  after.  About 
ten  she  appeared,  so  radiant,  so  beautiful,  and  so  kind ! 
The  trunk  had  revealed  a  dress  I  never  saw  before, 
and  the  sense  of  rest,  and  eternal  security,  and  un- 
broken love  had  revealed  a  charm  which  was  never 
there  to  see  before.  She  was  dressed  for  walking,  and, 
as  she  met  me,  said,  — 

u  Time  for  constitutional,  Mr.  Millionnaire." 

So  we  walked  again,  quite  up  town,  almost  to  the 
region  of  pig-pens  and  cabbage-gardens  which  is  now 
the  Central  Park.  And  after  just  the  first  gush  of  my 
enthusiasm,  Fausta  said,  very  seriously:  — 

"  I  must  teach  you  to  be  grave.  You  do  not  know 
whom  you  are  asking  to  be  your  wife.  Excepting 
Mrs.  Mason,  No.  27  Thirty-fourth  Street,  sir,  there  is 
no  one  in  the  world  who  is  of  kin  to  me,  and  she  does 
not  care  for  me  one  straw,  Felix,"  she  said,  almost 
sadly  now.  "You  call  yourself ' Child  of  the  Public* 
I  started  when  you  first  said  so,  for  that  is  just  what  I 
am. 

"  I  am  twenty-two  years  old.  My  father  died  before  I 
was  born.  My  mother,  a  poor  woman,  disliked  by  his 
relatives  and  avoided  bv  them,  went  to  live  in  Hobokan 


254        THE  CHILDKEN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

over  there,  with  me.  How  she  lived,  God  knows, 
but  it  happened  that  of  a  strange  death  she  died,  I  in 
her  arms." 

After  a  pause,  the  poor  girl  went  on :  — 

"  There  was  a  great  military  review,  an  encamp- 
ment. She  was  tempted  out  to  see  it.  Of  a  sudden 
by  some  mistake,  a  ramrod  was  fired  from  a  careless 
soldier's  gun,  and  it  pierced  her  through  her  heart.  I 
tell  you,  Felix,  it  pinned  my  baby  frock  into  the 
wound,  so  that  they  could  not  part  me  from  her  till  it 
was  cut  away. 

"  Of  course  every  one  was  filled  with  horror.  No- 
body claimed  poor  me,  the  baby.  But  the  battalion, 
the  Montgomery  Battalion,  it  was,  which  had,  by  mis- 
chance, killed  my  mother,  adopted  me  as  their  child. 
I  was  voted  '  Fille  du  Regiment.'  They  paid  an  as- 
sessment annually,  which  the  colonel  expended  for  me. 
A  kind  old  woman  nursed  me." 

"  She  was  your  Betsy  Myers,"  interrupted  I. 

"  And  when  I  was  old  enough  I  was  sent  into  Con- 
necticut, to  the  best  of  schools.  This  lasted  till  I  was 
sixteen.  Fortunately  for  me,  perhaps,  the  Montgom- 
ery Battalion  then  dissolved.  I  was  finding  it  hard  to 
answer  the  colonel's  annual  letters.  I  had  my  living 
to  earn,  —  it  was  best  I  should  earn  it.  I  declined  a 
proposal  to  go  out  as  a  missionary.  I  had  no  call.  I 
answered  one  of  Miss  Beecher's  appeals  for  Western 
teachers.  Most  of  my  life  since  has  been  a  school- 
ma'am's.     It  has  had  ups  and  downs.     But  I  have  al- 


THE   CHILDREN   OF    THE   PUBLIC.  255 

ways  been  proud  that  the  Public  was  my  godfather; 
and,  as  you  know,"  she  said,  u  I  have  trusted  the 
Public  well.  I  have  never  been  lonely,  wherever  I 
went.  I  tried  to  make  myself  of  use.  Where  I  was 
of  use  I  found  society.  The  ministers  have  been  kind 
to  me.  I  always  offered  my  services  in  the  Sunday 
schools  and  sewing-rooms.  The  school  committees 
have  been  kind  to  me.  They  are  the  Public's  high 
chamberlains  for  poor  girls.  I  have  written  for  the 
journals.  I  won  one  of  Sartain's  hundred-dollar 
prizes  —  " 

44  And  I  another,"  interrupted  I. 

"  When  I  was  very  poor,  I  won  the  first  prize  for 
an  essay  on  bad  boys." 

"And  I  the  second,"  answered  I. 

44 1  think  I  know  one  bad  boy  better  than  he 
knows  himself,"  said  she.  But  she  went  on.  44I 
watched  with  this  poor  Miss  Stillingfleet  the  night  she 
died.  This  absurd  4  distribution  '  had  got  hold  of  her, 
and  she  would  not  be  satisfied  till  she  had  transferred 
that  strange  ticket,  No.  2,973,  to  me,  writing  the  in- 
dorsement which  you  have  heard.  I  had  had  a  long- 
ing to  visit  New  York  and  Hoboken  again.  This 
ticket  seemed  to  me  to  beckon  me.  I  had  monev 
enough  to  come,  if  I  would  come  cheaply.  I  wrote 
to  my  father's  business  partner,  and  enclosed  a  note  to 
his  only  sister.  She  is  Mrs.  Mason.  She  asked  me, 
coldly  enough,  to  her  house.  Old  Mr.  Grills  always 
liked  me,  —  he  offered  me  escort  and  passage  as  far  aa 


256       THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  PUBLIC. 

Troy  or  Albany.  I  accepted  his  proposal,  and  you 
know  the  rest." 

When  I  told  Fausta  my  story,  she  declared  I  made 
it  up  as  I  went  along.  When  she  believed  it,  —  as 
she  does  believe  it  now,  —  she  agreed  with  me  in  de- 
claring that  it  was  not  fit  that  two  people  thus  joined 
should  ever  be  parted.     Nor  have  we  been,  ever ! 

She  made  a  hurried  visit  at  Mrs.  Mason's.  She  pre- 
pared there  for  her  wedding.  On  the  1st  of  Novem- 
ber we  went  into  that  same  church  which  was  our  first 
home  in  New  York;   and  that  dear  old  raven-man 

made  us 

one! 


THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET 

By  J.  THOMAS  DAREAGH  (late  C.  C.  S.). 


[This  paper  was  first  published  in  the  "  Galaxy,"  in  1866. J 


I  see  that  an  old  chum  of  mine  is  publishing  bits  of 
confidential  Confederate  History  in  Harper's  Maga- 
zine. It  would  seem  to  be  time,  then,  for  the  pivots 
to  be  disclosed  on  which  some  of  the  wheelwork  of 
the  last  six  years  has  been  moving.  The  science  of 
history,  as  I  understand  it,  depends  on  the  timely  dis- 
closure of  such  pivots,  which  are  apt  to  be  kept  out 
of  view  while  things  are  moving. 

I  was  in  the  Civil  Service  at  Richmond.  Why  I 
was  there,  or  what  I  did,  is  nobody's  affair.  And  I 
do  not  in  this  paper  propose  to  tell  how  it  happened 
that  I  was  in  New  York  in  October,  1864,  on  confi- 
dential business.  Enough  that  I  was  there,  and  that 
it  was  honest  business.  That  business  done,  as  far  as 
it  could  be  with  the  resources  intrusted  to  me,  I  pre- 
pared to  return  home.  And  thereby  hangs  this  tale, 
and,  as  it  proved,  the  fate  of  the  Confederacy. 

For,  of  course,  I  wanted  to  take  presents  home  to 
my  family.  Very  little  question  was  there  what  these 
presents  should  be, — for  I  had  no  boys  nor  brothers. 


258  THE   SKELETON    IN   THE   CLOSED. 

The  women  of  the  Confederacy  had  one  want,  which 
overtopped  all  others.  They  could  make  coffee  out 
of  beans ;  pins  they  had  from  Columbus ;  straw  hats 
they  braided  quite  well  with  their  own  fair  hands ; 
snuff  we  could  get  better  than  you  could  in  "  the  old 
concern."  But  we  had  no  hoop-skirts,  ■*—  skeletons, 
we  used  to  call  them.  No  ingenuity  had  made  them. 
No  bounties  had  forced  them.  The  Bat,  the  Grey- 
hound, the  Deer,  the  Flora,  the  J.  C.  Cobb,  the  Ya- 
runa,  and  the  Fore-and-Aft  all  took  in  cargoes  of  them 
for  us  in  England.  But  the  Bat  and  the  Deer  and  the 
Flora  were  seized  by  the  blockaders,  the  J.  C.  Cobb 
sunk  at  sea,  the  Fore-and-Aft  and  the  Greyhound 
were  set  fire  to  by  their  own  crews,  and  the  Varuna 
(our  Varuna)  was  never  heard  of.  Then  the  State 
of  Arkansas  offered  sixteen  townships  of  swamp  land 
to  the  first  manufacturer  who  would  exhibit  five  gross 
of  a  home-manufactured  article.  But  no  one  ever 
competed.  The  first  attempts,  indeed,  were  put  to  an 
end,  when  Schofield  crossed  the  Blue  Lick,  and  de- 
stroyed the  dams  on  Yellow  Branch.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  people's  crinoline  collapsed  faster 
than  the  Confederacy  did,  of  which  that  brute  of  a 
Grierson  said  there  was  never  anything  of  it  but  the 
outside. 

Of  course,  then,  I  put  in  the  bottom  of  my  new 
large  trunk  in  New  York,  not  a  u  duplex  elliptic," 
for  none  were  then  made,  but  a  "  Belmonte,"  of 
thirty  springs,  for  my  wife.     I  bought,  for  her  more 


THE   SKELETON  EN  THE   CLOSET.  259 

common  wear,  a  good  "  Belle-Fontaine. "  For  Sarah 
and  Susy  each,  I  got  two  "  Dumb-Belles."  For  Aunt 
Eunice  and  Aunt  Clara,  maiden  sisters  of  my  wife, 
who  lived  with  us  after  Winchester  fell  the  fourth 
time,  I  got  the  "  Scotch  Harebell,"  two  of  each.  For 
my  own  mother  I  got  one  u  Belle  of  the  Prairies"  and 
one  "  Invisible  Combination  Gossamer."  I  did  not 
forget  good  old  Mamma  Chloe  and  Mamma  Jane. 
For  them  I  got  substantial  cages,  without  names. 
With  these,  tied  in  the  shapes  of  figure  eights  in  the 
bottom  of  my  trunk,  as  I  said,  I  put  in  an  assorted 
cargo  of  dry-goods  above,  and,  favored  by  a  pass,  and 
Major  Mulford's  courtesy  on  the  flag-of-truce  boat,  I 
arrived  safely  at  Richmond  before  the  autumn  closed. 

I  was  received  at  home  with  rapture.  But  when, 
the  next  morning,  I  opened  my  stores,  this  became 
rapture  doubly  enraptured.  Words  cannot  tell  the 
silent  delight  with  which  old  and  young,  black  and 
white,  surveyed  these  fairy-like  structures,  yet  unbro- 
ken and  unmended. 

Perennial  summer  reigned  that  autumn  day  in  that 
reunited  family.  It  reigned  the  next  day,  and  the 
next.  It  would  have  reigned  till  now  if  the  Bel- 
montes  and  the  other  things  would  last  as  long  as  the 
advertisements  declare  ;  and,  what  is  more,  the  Con- 
federacy would  have  reigned  till  now,  President  Davis 
and  General  Lee !  but  for  that  great  misery,  which  al! 
families  understand,  which  culminated  in  our  great 
misfortune. 


260        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

I  was  up  in  the  cedar  closet  one  day,  looking  for  an 
old  parade  cap  of  mine,  which  I  thought,  though  it 
was  my  third  best,  might  look  better  than  my  second 
best,  which  I  had  worn  ever  since  my  best  was  lost  at 
the  Seven  Pines.  I  say  I  was  standing  on  the  lower 
shelf  of  the  cedar  closet,  when,  as  I  stepped  along  in 
the  darkness,  my  right  foot  caught  in  a  bit  of  wire, 
my  left  did  not  give  way  in  time,  and  I  fell,  with  a 
small  wooden  hat-box  in  my  hand,  full  on  the  floor. 
The  corner  of  the  hat-box  struck  me  just  below  the 
second  frontal  sinus,  and  I  fainted  away. 

When  I  came  to  myself  I  was  in  the  blue  chamber ; 
I  had  vinegar  on  a  brown  paper  on  my  forehead ;  the 
room  was  dark,  and  I  found  mother  sitting  by  me, 
glad  enough  indeed  to  hear  my  voice,  and  to  know 
that  I  knew  her.  It  was  some  time  before  I  fully  un- 
derstood what  had  happened.  Then  she  brought  me 
a  cup  of  tea,  and  I,  quite  refreshed,  said  I  must  go  to 
the  office. 

'*  Office,  my  child  !  "  said  she.  u  Your  leg  is  bro- 
ken above  the  ankle  ;  you  will  not  move  these  six 
weeks.     Where  do  you  suppose  you  are  ?  " 

Till  then  I  had.  no  notion  that  it  was  five  minutes 
since  I  went  into  the  closet.  When  she  told  me  the 
time,  five  in  the  afternoon,  I  groaned  in  the  lowest 
depths.  For,  in  my  breast  pocket  in  that  innocent 
coat,  which  I  could  now  see  lying  on  the  window-seat, 
were  the  duplicate  despatches  to  Mr.  Mason,  for  which, 
late  the  night  before,  I  had  got  the  Secretary's  signa* 


THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET.        261 

hire.  They  were  to  go  at  ten  that  morning  to  Wil- 
mington, by  the  Navy  Department's  special  messenger. 
I  had  taken  them  to  insure  care  and  certainty.  I  had 
worked  on  them  till  midnight,  and  they  had  not  been 
signed  till  near  one  o'clock.  Heavens  and  earth,  and 
here  it  was  five  o'clock !  The  man  must  be  half-way 
to  Wilmington  by  this  time.  I  sent  the  doctor  for 
Lafarge,  my  clerk.  Lafarge  did  his  prettiest  in  rush- 
ing to  the  telegraph.  But  no  !  A  freshet  on  the 
Chowan  River,  or  a  raid  by  Foster,  or  something,  or 
nothing,  had  smashed  the  telegraph  wire  for  that  night. 
And  before  that  despatch  ever  reached  Wilmington  the 
navy  agent  was  in  the  offing  in  the  Sea  Maid. 

"  But  perhaps  the  duplicate  got  through  ?  "  No, 
breathless  reader,  the  duplicate  did  not  get  through. 
The  duplicate  was  taken  by  Faucon,  in  the  Ino.  I 
saw  it  last  week  in  Dr.  Lieber's  hands,  in  Washington. 
Well,  all  I  know  is,  that  if  the  duplicate  had  got 
through,  the  Confederate  government  would  have 
had  in  March  a  chance  at  eighty-three  thousand  two 
hundred  and  eleven  muskets,  which,  as  it  was,  never  left 
Belgium.  So  much  for  my  treading  into  that  blessed 
piece  of  wire  on  the  shelf  of  the  cedar  closet,  up  stairs. 

"  What  was  the  bit  of  wire  ?  " 

Well,  it  was  not  telegraph  wire.  If  it  had  been,  it 
would  have  broken  when  it  was  not  wanted  to. 
Don't  you  know  what  it  was  ?  Go  up  in  your  own 
cedar  cioset,  and  step  about  in  the  dark,  and  see  what 
brings  up  round  your  ankles.     Julia,  poor  child,  cried 


262        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

her  eyes  out  about  it.  When  I  got  well  enough  to  sit 
up,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  talk  and  plan  with  her,  she 
brought  down  seven  of  these  old  things,  antiquated 
Belmontes  and  Simplex  Elliptics,  and  horrors  without 
a  name,  and  she  made  a  pile  of  them  in  the  bedroom, 
and  asked  me  in  the  most  penitent  way  what  she 
should  do  with  them. 

"  You  can't  burn  them,"  said  she ;  "  fire  won't 
touch  them.  If  you  bury  them  in  the  garden,  they 
come  up  at  the  second  raking.  If  you  give  them  to 
the  servants,  they  say,  '  Thank-e,  missus,'  and  throw 
them  in  the  back  passage.  If  you  give  them  to  the  poor, 
they  throw  them  into  the  street  in  front,  and  do  not  say, 
'Thank-e.'  Sarah  sent  seventeen  over  to  the  sword 
factory,  and  the  foreman  swore  at  the  boy,  and  told 
him  he  would  floer  him  within  an  inch  of  his  life  if  he 
brought  any  more  of  his  sauce  there  ;  and  so  —  and 
so,"  sobbed  the  poor  child,  "I  just  rolled  up  these 
wretched  things,  and  laid  them  in  the  cedar  closet, 
hoping,  you  know,  that  some  day  the  government 
would  want  something,  and  would  advertise  for  them. 
You  know  what  a  good  thing  I  made  out  of  the  bottle 
corks." 

In  fact,  sne  had  sold  our  bottle  corks  for  four  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  sixteen  dollars  of  the  first  issue. 
We  afterward  bought  two  umbrellas  and  a  corkscrew 
with  the  money. 

Well,  I  did  not  scold  Julia.  It  was  certainly  no 
fault  of  hers  that  I  was  walking  on  the  lower  shelf  of 


^HE   SKELETON  EN  THE   CLOSET.  263 

her  cedar  closet.  I  told  her  to  make  a  parcel  of  the 
things,  and  the  first  time  we  went  to  drive  I  hove  the 
whole  shapeless  heap  into  the  river,  without  saying 
mass  for  them. 

But  let  no  man  think,  or  no  woman,  that  this  was 
the  end  of  troubles.  As  I  look  back  on  that  winter, 
and  on  the  spring  of  1865  (I  do  not  mean  the  steel 
spring),  it  seems  to  me  only  the  beginning.  I  got  out 
on  crutches  at  last ;  I  had  the  office  transferred  to 
my  house,  so  that  Lafarge  and  Hepburn  could  work 
there  nights,  and  communicate  with  me  when  I  could 
not  go  out ;  but  mornings  I  hobbled  up  to  the  De- 
partment, and  sat  with  the  Chief,  and  took  his  orders. 
Ah  me  !  shall  I  soon  forget  that  damp  winter  morn- 
ing, when  we  all  iiad  such  hope  at  the  office.  One  or 
two  of  the  army  fellows  looked  in  at  the  window  as 
they  ran  by,  and  we  knew  that  they  felt  well ;  and 
though  I  would  not  ask  Old  Wick,  as  we  had  nick- 
named the  Chief,  what  was  in  the  wind,  I  knew  the 
time  had  come,  and  that  the  lion  meant  to  break  the 
net  this  time.  I  made  an  excuse  to  go  home  earlier 
than  usual ;  rode  down  to  the  house  in  the  Major's 
ambulance,  I  remember  ;  and  hopped  in,  to  surprise 
Julia  with  the  good  news,  only  to  find  that  the  whole 
house  was  in  that  quiet  uproar  which  shows  that  some- 
thing bad  has  happened  of  a  sudden. 

uWhat  is  it,   Chloe  ? "  said  I,  as  the  old   wench 
rushed  by  me  with  a  bucket  of  water. 

"Poor  Mr.  George,  I  'fraid  he  's  dead,  sah  I  M 


264        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

And  there  he  really  was,  —  dear  handsome,  bright 
George  Schaff,  —  the  delight  of  all  the  nicest  girls  of 
Richmond  ;  he  lay  there  on  Aunt  Eunice's  bed  on  the 
ground  floor,  where  they  had  brought  him  in.  He 
was  not  dead,  —  and  he  did  not  die.  He  is  making 
cotton  in  Texas  now.  But  he  looked  mighty  near  it 
then.  "  The  deep  cut  in  his  head  "  was  the  worst  I 
then  had  ever  seen,  and  the  blow  confused  everything. 
When  McGregor  got  round,  he  said  it  was  not  hope- 
less ;  but  we  were  all  turned  out  of  the  room,  and 
with  one  thing  and  another  he  got  the  boy  out  of  the 
swoon,  and  somehow  it  proved  his  head  was  not  broken. 

No,  but  poor  George  swears  to  this  day  it  were  bet- 
ter it  had  been,  if  it  could  only  have  been  broken  the 
right  way  and  on  the  right  field.  For  that  evening 
we  heard  that  everything  had  gone  wrong  in  the  sur- 
prise. There  we  had  been  waiting  for  one  of  those 
early  fogs,  and  at  last  the  fog  had  come.  And  Jubal 
Early  had,  that  morning,  pushed  out  every  man  he 
had,  that  could  stand  ;  and  they  lay  hid  for  three  mor- 
tal hours,  within  I  don't  know  how  near  the  picket 
line  at  Fort  Powhatan,  only  waiting  for  the  shot  which 
John  Streight's  party  were  to  fire  at  Wilson's  Wharf,  as 
soon  as  somebody  on  our  left  centre  advanced  in  force 
on  the  enemy's  line  above  Turkey  Island  stretching 
across  to  Nansemond.  I  am  not  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and  I  forget  whether  he  was  to  advance  en  bar- 
bette  or  by  ichelon  of  infantry.  But  he  was  to  advance 
somehow,  and  he  knew  how  ;  and  when  he  advanced, 


THE   SKELETON  IN  THE   CLOSET.  265 

you  see,  that  other  man  lower  down  was  to  rush  in, 
and  as  soon  as  Early  heard  him  he  was  to  surprise 
Powhatan,  you  see  ;  and  then,  if  you  have  understood 
me,  Grant  and  Butler  and  the  whole  rig  of  them 
would  have  been  cut  off  from  their  supplies,  would 
have  had  to  fight  a  battle  for  which  they  were  not  pre- 
pared, with  then  right  made  into  a  new  left,  and  their 
old  left  unexpectedly  advanced  at  an  oblique  angle 
from  their  centre,  and  would  not  that  have  been  the 
end  of  them  ? 

Well,  that  never  happened.  And  the  reason  it 
never  happened  was,  that  poor  George  Schaff,  with 
the  last  fatal  order  for  this  man  whose  name  I  forget 
(the  same  who  was  afterward  killed  the  day  before 
High  Bridge),  undertook  to  save  time  by  cutting 
across  behind  my  house,  from  Franklin  to  Green  Streets. 
You  know  how  much  time  he  saved,  —  they  waited  all 
day  for  that  order.  George  told  me  afterwards  that 
the  last  thing  he  remembered  was  kissing  his  hand  to 
Julia,  who  sat  at  her  bedroom  window.  He  said  he 
thought  she  might  be  the  last  woman  he  ever  saw  this 
side  of  heaven.  Just  after  that,  it  must  have  been,  — 
his  horse  —  that  white  Messenger  colt  old  Williams  bred 
—  went  over  like  a  log,  and  poor  George  was  pitched 
fifteen  feet  head-foremost  against  a  stake  there  was  in 
that  lot.  Julia  saw  the  whole.  She  rushed  out  with 
all  the  women,  and  had  just  brought  him  in  when  I 
got  home.  And  that  was  the  reason  that  the  great 
promised  combination  of  December,  1864,  never  came 

off  at  all. 

12 


266  THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

I  walked  out  in  the  lot,  after  McGregor  turned  me 
out  of  the  chamber,  to  see  what  they  had  done  with 
the  horse.  There  he  lay,  as  dead  as  old  Messenger 
himself.  His  neck  was  broken.  And  do  you  think,  I 
looked  to  see  what  had  tripped  him.  I  supposed  it 
was  one  of  the  boys'  bandy  holes.  It  was  no  such 
thing.  The  poor  wretch  had  tangled  his  hind  legs  in 
one  of  those  infernal  hoop-wires  that  Chloe  had  thrown 
out  in  the  piece  when  I  gave  her  her  new  ones. 
Though  I  did  not  know  it  then,  those  fatal  scraps  of 
rusty  steel  had  broken  the  neck  that  day  of  Robert 
Lee's  army. 

That  time  I  made  a  row  about  it.  I  felt  too  badly 
to  go  into  a  passion.  But  before  the  women  went  to 
bed,  —  they  were  all  in  the  sitting-room  together, —  I 
talked  to  them  like  a  father.  I  did  not  swear.  I  had 
got  over  that  for  a  while,  in  that  six  weeks  on  my  back. 
But  I  did  say  the  old  wires  were  infernal  things,  and 
that  the  house  and  premises  must  be  made  rid  of  them. 
The  aunts  laughed,  —  though  I  was  so  serious,  —  and 
tipped  a  wink  to  the  girls.  The  girls  wanted  to  laugh, 
but  were  afraid  to.  And  then  it  came  out  that  the 
aunts  had  sold  their  old  hoops,  tied  as  tight  as  they 
could  tie  them,  in  a  great  mass  of  rags.  They  had 
made  a  fortune  by  the  sale,  —  I  am  sorry  to  say  it 
was  in  other  rags,  but  the  rags  they  got  were  new  in- 
stead of  old,  —  it  was  a  real  Aladdin  bargain.  The 
new  rags  had  blue  backs,  and  were  numbered,  some 
as  high  as  fifty  dollars.     The  rag-man  had  been  in  a 


THE  SKELETON   EN    THE   CLOSET  267 

hurry,  and  had  not  known  what  made  the  things  so 
heavy.  I  frowned  at  the  swindle,  but  they  said  all 
was  fair  with  a  pedler,  —  and  I  own  I  was  glad  the 
things  were  well  out  of  Richmond.  But  when  1 
said  1  thought  it  was  a  mean  trick,  Lizzie  and  Sarah 
looked  demure,  and  asked  what  in  the  world  I  would 
have  them  do  with  the  old  things.  Did  I  expect  them 
to  walk  down  to  the  bridge  themselves  with  great  par- 
cels to  throw  into  the  river,  as  I  had  done  by  Julia's  ? 
Of  course  it  ended,  as  such  things  always  do,  by  my 
taking  the  work  on  my  own  shoulders.  I  told  them 
to  tie  up  all  they  had  in  as  small  a  parcel  as  they  could, 
and  bring  them  to  me. 

Accordingly,  the  next  day,  I  found  a  handsome 
brown  paper  parcel,  not  so  very  large,  considering, 
and  strangely  square,  considering,  which  the  minxes 
had  put  together  and  left  on  my  office  table.  They 
had  a  great  frolic  over  it.  They  had  not  spared  red 
tape  nor  red  wax.  Very  official  it  looked,  indeed, 
and  on  the  left-hand  corner,  in  Sarah's  boldest  and 
most  contorted  hand,  was  written,  "  Secret  service." 
We  had  a  great  laugh  over  their  success.  And,  in- 
deed, I  should  have  taken  it  with  me  the  next  time  I 
went  down  to  the  Tredegar,  but  that  I  happened  to 
dine  one  evening  with  young  Norton  of  our  gallant 
little  navy,  and  a  very  curious  thing  he  told  us. 

We  were  talking  about  the  disappointment  of  thf> 
combined  land  attack.  I  did  not  tell  what  upset  poor 
SchafFs  horse  ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think  those  navy  mec 


268        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

knew  the  details  of  the  disappointment.  O'Brien  had 
told  me,  in  confidence,  what  I  have  written  down  proba- 
bly for  the  first  time  now.  But  we  were  speaking,  in 
a  general  way,  of  the  disappointment.  Norton  finished 
his  cigar  rather  thoughtfully,  and  then  said :  "  Well, 
fellows,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  put  in  the  newspapers, 
but  what  do  you  suppose  upset  our  grand  naval  attack, 
the  day  the  Yankee  gunboats  skittled  down  the  river 
so  handsomely  ?  " 

"  Why,"  said  Allen,  who  is  Norton's  best-beloved 
friend,  "  they  say  that  you  ran  away  from  them  as  fast 
as  they  did  from  you." 

"Do  they?"  said  Norton,  grimly.  "If  you  say 
that,  I  '11  break  your  head  for  you.  Seriously,  men," 
continued  he,  "  that  was  a  most  extraordinary  thing. 
You  know  I  was  on  the  ram.  But  why  she  stopped 
when  she  stopped  I  knew  as  little  as  this  wineglass 
does ;  and  Callender  himself  knew  no  more  than  I. 
We  had  not  been  hit.  We  were  all  right  as  a  trivet  for 
all  we  knew,  when,  skree  !  she  began  blowing  off  steam, 
and  we  stopped  dead,  and  began  to  drift  down  under 
those  batteries.  Callender  had  to  telegraph  to  the  little 
Mosquito,  or  whatever  Walter  called  his  boat,  and  the 
spunky  little  thing  ran  down  and  got  us  out  of  the 
scrape.  Walter  did  it  right  well ;  if  he  had  had  a 
monitor  under  him  he  could  not  have  done  better. 
Of  course  we  all  rushed  to  the  engine-room.  What 
in  thunder  were  they  at  there  ?  All  they  knew  wa? 
they  could  get  no  water  into  her  boiler. 


THE   SKELETON  IN   THE   CLOSET.  269 

"  Now,  fellows,  this  is  the  end  of  the  storj.  Ag 
soon  as  the  boilers  cooled  off  they  worked  all  right  on 
those  supply  pumps.  May  I  be  hanged  if  they  had 
not  sucked  in,  somehow,  a  long  string  of  yarn,  and 
cloth,  and,  if  you  will  believe  me,  a  wire  of  some 
woman's  crinoline.  And  that  French  folly  of  a  sham 
Empress  cut  short  that  day  the  victory  of  the  Confed- 
erate navy,  and  old  Davis  himself  can't  tell  when  we 
shall  have  such  a  chance  again !  " 

Some  of  the  men  thought  Norton  lied.  But  I 
never  was  with  him  when  he  did  not  tell  the  truth.  I 
did  not  mention,  however,  what  I  had  thrown  into  the 
water  the  last  time  I  had  gone  over  to  Manchester. 
And  I  changed  my  mind  about  Sarah's  "  secret-ser- 
vice "  parcel.     It  remained  on  my  table. 

That  was  the  last  dinner  our  old  club  had  at  the 
Spotswood,  I  believe.  The  spring  came  on,  and  the 
plot  thickened.  We  did  our  work  in  the  office  as 
well  as  we  could ;  I  can  speak  for  mine,  and  if  other 
people  —  but  no  matter  for  that !  The  3d  of  April 
came,  and  the  fire,  and  the  right  wing  of  Grant's 
army.  I  remember  I  was  glad  then  that  I  had  moved 
the  office  down  to  the  house,  for  we  were  out  of  the 
way  there.  Everybody  had  run  away  from  the  De- 
partment ;  and  so,  when  the  powers  that  be  took  pos- 
session, my  little  sub-bureau  was  unmolested  for  some 
days.  I  improved  those  days  as  well  as  I  could,  — 
burning  carefully  what  was  to  be  burned,  and  hiding 
carefully  what  was  to  be   hidden.     One  thing  that 


270        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

happened  then  belongs  to  this  story.  As  I  was  at 
work  on  the  private  bureau,  —  it  was  really  a  bureau, 
as  it  happened,  one  I  had  made  Aunt  Eunice  give  up 
when  I  broke  my  leg,  —  I  came,  to  my  horror,  on  a 
neat  parcel  of  coast-survey  maps  of  Georgia,  Alabama, 
and  Florida.  They  were  not  the  same  Maury  stole 
when  he  left  the  National  Observatory-  but  they  were 
like  them.  Now  I  was  perfectly  sure  that  on  that  fa- 
tal Sunday  of  the  flight  I  had  sent  Lafarge  for  these, 
that  the  President  might  use  them,  if  necessary,  in  his 
escape.  When  I  found  them,  I  hopped  out  and  called 
for  Julia,  and  asked  her  if  she  did  not  remember  his 
coming  for  them.  "  Certainly,"  she  said,  "  it  was  the 
first  I  knew  of  the  danger.  Lafarge  came,  asked  for 
the  key  of  the  office,  told  me  all  was  up,  walked  in, 
and  in  a  moment  was  gone." 

And  here,  on  the  file  of  April  3d,  was  Lafarge's 
line  to  me  :  — 

""  I  got  the  secret-service  parcel  myself,  and  have 
put  it  in  the  President's  own  hands.  I  marked  it, 
4  Gulf  coast,'  as  you  bade  me." 

What  could  Lafarge  have  given  to  the  President  ? 
Not  the  soundings  of  Hatteras  Bar.  Not  the  working- 
drawings  of  the  first  monitor.  I  had  all  these  under 
my  hand.  Could  it  be,  — u  Julia,  what  did  we  do  with 
that  stuff  of  Sarah's  that  she  marked  secret  service?  " 

As  I  live,  we  had  sent  the  girls'  old  hoops  to  the 
President  in  his  flight. 

And  when  the  next  day  we  read  how  he  used  them, 


THE   SKELETON  Etf  THE   CLOSET.  271 

and  how  Pritchard  arrested  him,  we  thought  if  he 
had  only  had  the  right  parcel  he  would  have  found 
the  way  to  Florida. 

That  is  really  the  end  of  this  memoir.  But  I  should 
not  have  written  it,  but  for  something  that  happened 
just  now  on  the  piazza.  You  must  know,  some  of 
us  wrecks  are  up  here  at  the  Berkeley  baths.  My  uncle 
has  a  place  near  here.  Here  came  to-day  John  Sis- 
son,  whom  I  have  not  seen  since  Memminger  ran  and 
took  the  clerks  with  him.  Here  we  had  before,  both 
the  Richards  brothers,  the  great  paper  men,  you 
know,  who  started  the  Edgerly  Works  in  Prince 
George's  County,  just  after  the  war  began.  After 
dinner,  Sisson  and  they  met  on  the  piazza.  Queerly 
enough,  they  had  never  seen  each  other  before,  though 
they  had  used  reams  of  Richards's  paper  in  corre- 
spondence with  each  other,  and  the  treasury  had  used 
tons  of  it  in  the  printing  of  bonds  and  bank-bills.  Of 
course  we  all  fell  to  talking  of  old  times,  —  old  they 
seem  now,  though  it  is  not  a  year  ago.  "  Richards," 
said  Sisson  at  last,  "  what  became  of  that  last  order  of 
ours  for  water-lined,  pure  linen  government-callen- 
dered  paper  of  surete  f  We  never  got  it,  and  I  never 
knew  why." 

"  Did  you  think  Kilpatrick  got  it  ?  "  said  Richards, 
rather  gruffly. 

"  None  of  your  chaff,  Richards.  Just  tell  where 
the  paper  went,  for  in  the  loss  of  that  lot  of  paper,  as 
it  proved,  the  bottom  dropped  out  of  the  Treasury 


272        THE  SKELETON  IN  THE  CLOSET. 

tub.  On  that  paper  was  to  have  been  printed  our 
new  issue  of  ten  per  cent,  convertible,  you  know,  and 
secured  on  that  up-country  cotton,  which  Kirby  Smith 
had  above  the  Big  Raft.  I  had  the  printers  ready  for 
near  a  month  waiting  for  that  paper.  The  plates 
were  really  very  handsome.  I  '11  show  you  a  proof 
when  we  go  up  stairs.  Wholly  new  they  were,  made 
by  some  Frenchmen  we  got,  who  had  worked  for  the 
Bank  of  France.  I  was  so  anxious  to  have  the  thing 
well  done,  that  I  waited  three  weeks  for  that  paper, 
and,  by  Jove,  I  waited  just  too  long.  We  never  got 
one  of  the  bonds  off,  and  that  was  why  we  had  no 
money  in  March." 

Richards  threw  his  cigar  away.  I  will  not  say  he 
swore  between  his  teeth,  but  he  twirled  his  chair 
round,  brought  it  down  on  all  fours,  both  his  elbows 
on  his  knees  and  his  chin  in  both   hands. 

44  Mr.  Sisson,"  said  he,  "  if  the  Confederacy  had 
lived,  I  would  have  died  before  I  ever  told  what  be- 
came of  that  order  of  yours.  But  now  I  have  nc 
secrets,  I  believe,  and  I  care  for  nothing.  I  do  not 
know  now  how  it  happened.  We  knew  it  was  at* 
extra  nice  job.  And  we  had  it  on  an  elegant  little 
new  French  Fourdrinier,  which  cost  us  more  than  we 
shall  ever  pay.  The  pretty  thing  ran  like  oil  the  day 
before.  That  day,  I  thought  all  the  devils  were  in  it. 
The  more  power  we  put  on  the  more  the  rollers 
screamed  ;  and  the  less  we  put  on,  the  more  sulkily 
the  jade  stopped.  I  tried  it  myself  every  way  ;  back 
current,   I  tried ;    forward   current ;    high  feed ;    low 


THE  SKELETON  TM  THE  CLOSET.        273 

treed ,  I  tried  it  on  old  stock,  I  tried  it  on  new  ;  and, 
Mr.  Sisson,  I  would  have  made  better  paper  in  a  cof- 
fee-mill !  We  drained  off  every  drop  of  water.  We 
washed  the  tubs  free  from  size.  Then  my  brother, 
there,  worked  all  night  with  the  machinists,  taking 
down  the  frame  and  the  rollers.  You  would  not  be- 
lieve it,  sir,  but  that  little  bit  of  wire,"  —  and  he  took 
out  of  his  pocket  a  piece  of  this  hateful  steel,  which 
poor  I  knew  so  well  by  this  time,  —  "  that  little  bit  of 
wire  had  passed  in  from  some  hoop-skirt,  passed  the 
pickers,  passed  the  screens,  through  all  the  troughs* 
up  and  down  through  what  we  call  the  lacerators, 
and  had  got  itself  wrought  in,  where,  if  you  know  a 
Fourdrinier  machine,  you  may  have  noticed  a  brass 
ring  riveted  to  the  cross-bar,  and  there  this  cursed  lit- 
tie  knife  —  for  you  see  it  was  a  knife,  by  that  time  — 
had  been  cutting  to  pieces  the  endless  wire  web  every 
time  the  machine  was  started.  You  lost  your  bonds* 
Mr.  Sisson,  because  some  Yankee  woman  cheated  one 
of  my  rag-men." 

On  that  story  I  came  up  stairs.  Poor  Aunt  Eunice ! 
She  was  the  reason  I  got  no  salary  on  the  1st  of  April. 
I  thought  I  would  warn  other  women  by  writing  down 
tne  story. 

That  fatal  present  of  mine,  in  those  harmless  hour- 
glass parcels,  was  the  ruin  of  the  Confederate  navy, 
army,  ordnance,  and  treasury  ;  and  it  led  to  the  cap- 
ture of  the  poor  President  too. 

But,  Heaven  be  praised,  no  one  shall  say  that  my 
office  did  not  do  its  duty  ! 


CHEISTMAS  WAITS  IN   BOSTON. 


FROM  THE  INGHAM  PAPERS. 

{"When  my  friends  of  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  asked  ma 
iast  year  to  contribute  to  their  Christmas  number,  I  was  very 
glad  to  recall  this  scrap  of  Mr.  Ingham's  memoirs. 

For  in  most  modern  Christmas  stories  I  have  observed  that  the 
rich  wake  up  of  a  sudden  to  befriend  the  poor,  and  that  the 
moral  is  educed  from  such  compassion.  The  incidents  in  this 
story  show,  what  all  life  shows,  that  the  poor  befriend  the  rich 
as  truly  as  the  rich  the  poor :  that,  in  the  Christian  life,  each 
needs  all. 

I  have  been  asked  a  dozen  times  how  far  the  story  is  true. 
Of  course  no  such  series  of  incidents  has  ever  taken  place  in  thia 
order  in  four  or  five  hours.  But  there  is  nothing  told  here  which 
has  not  parallels  perfectly  fair  in  my  experience  or  in  that  of  any 
working  minister.] 


I  always  give  myself  a  Christmas  present. 

And  on  this  particular  year  the  present  was  a  carol 
party,  which  is  about  as  good  fun,  all  things  con- 
senting kindly,  as  a  man  can  have. 

Many  things  must  consent,  as  will  appear.  First  of 
all,  there  must  be  good  sleighing  ;  and  second,  a  fine 
night  for  Christmas  eve.     Ours  are  not  the  carollings 


CHEISTMA&   WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  275 

of  your  poor  shivering  little  East  Angles  or  South  Mer- 
cians, where  they  have  to  plod  round  afoot  in  countries 
which  do  not  know  what  a  sleigh-ride  is. 

I  had  asked  Harry  to  have  sixteen  of  the  best  voices 
in  the  chapel  school  to  be  trained  to  five  or  six  good 
carols,  without  knowing  why.  We  did  not  care  to 
disappoint  them  if  a  February  thaw  setting  in  on  the 
24th  of  December  should  break  up  the  spree  before  it 
began.  Then  I  had  told  Howland  that  he  must  re 
serve  for  me  a  span  of  good  horses,  and  a  sleigh  that  I 
could  pack  sixteen  small  children  into,  tight-stowed. 
Howland  is  always  good  about  such  things,  knew  what 
the  sleigh  was  for,  having  done  the  same  in  other 
years,  and  made  the  span  four  horses  of  his  own  ac- 
cord, because  the  children  would  like  it  better,  and 
"  it  would  be  no  difference  to  him."  Sunday  night, 
as  the  weather  nymphs  ordered,  the  wind  hauled 
round  to  the  northwest  and  everything  froze  hard. 
Monday  night,  things  moderated  and  the  snow  began 
to  fall  steadily,  —  so  steadily  ;  and  so  Tuesday  night 
the  Metropolitan  people  gave  up  their  unequal  con 
test,  all  good  men  and  angels  rejoicing  at  their  dis- 
comfiture, and  only  a  few  of  the  people  in  the  very 
lowest  Bolgie  being  ill-natured  enough  to  grieve. 
And  thus  it  was,  that  by  Thursday  evening  was  one  hard 
compact  roadway  from  Copp's  Hill  to  the  Bone-burn- 
er's Gehenna,  fit  for  good  men  and  angels  to  ride  over, 
without  jar,  without  noise,  and  without  fatigue  to  horse 
or  man.     So  it  was  that  when  I  came  down  with  Ly- 


276  CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN   BOSTON. 

cidas  to  the  chapel  at  seven  o'clock,  I  found  Harry 
had  gathered  there  his  eight  pretty  girls  and  his  eight 
jolly  boys,  and  had  them  practising  for  the  last  time, 

"  Carol,  carol,  Christians, 
Carol  joyfully ; 
Carol  for  the  coming 
Of  Christ's  nativity." 

1  think  the  children  had  got  inkling  of  what  was 
coming,  or  perhaps  Harry  had  hinted  it  to  their  moth- 
ers. Certainly  they  were  warmly  dressed,  and  when, 
fifteen  minutes  afterwards,  Howland  came  round  him- 
self with  the  sleigh,  he  had  put  in  as  many  rugs  and 
bear-skins  as  if  he  thought  the  children  were  to  be 
taken  new-born  from  their  respective  cradles.  Great 
was  the  rejoicing  as  the  bells  of  the  horses  rang  be- 
neath the  chapel  windows,  and  Harry  did  not  get  his 
last  da  capo  for  his  last  carol.  Not  much  matter  in- 
deed, for  they  were  perfect  enough  in  it  before  mid- 
night. 

Lycidas  and  I  tumbled  in  on  the  back  seat,  each 
with  a  child  in  his  lap  to  keep  us  warm  ;  I  flanked 
by  Sam  Perry,  and  he  by  John  Rich,  both  of  the 
mercurial  age,  and  therefore  good  to  do  errands, 
Harry  was  in  front  somewhere  flanked  in  like  wise, 
and  the  other  children  lay  in  miscellaneously  between, 
Hke  sardines  when  you  have  first  opened  the  box 
I  had  invited  Lycidas,  because,  besides  being  my  best 
friend,  he  is  the  best  fellow  in  the  world,  and  so  de- 
serves the  best  Christmas  eve  can  give  him.     Under 


CHRISTMAS   WAITS  IN   BOSTON.  277 

(he  full  moon,  on  the  still  white  snow,  with  sixteen  chil- 
dren at  the  happiest,  and  with  the  blessed  memories  of 
the  best  the  world  has  ever  had,  there  can  be  nothing 
better  than  two  or  three  such  hours. 

"  First,  driver,  out  on  Commonwealth  Avenue. 
That  will  tone  down  the  horses.  Stop  on  the  left  af- 
ter you  have  passed  Fairfield  Street."  So  we  dashed 
up  to  the  front  of  Haliburton's  palace,  where  he  was 
keeping  his  first  Christmas  tide.  And  the  children, 
whom  Harry  had  hushed  down  for  a  square  or  two, 
broke  forth  with  good  full  voice  under  his  strong  lead 
in 

"  Shepherd  of  tender  sheep," 

singing  with  all  that  unconscious  pathos  with  which 
children  do  sing,  and  starting  the  tears  in  your  eyes  in 
the  midst  of  your  gladness.  The  instant  the  horses' 
bells  stopped  their  voices  began.  In  an  instant  more 
we  saw  Haliburton  and  Anna  run  to  the  window  and 
pull  up  the  shades,  and  in  a  minute  more  faces  at  all 
the  windows.  And  so  the  children  sung  through 
Clement's  old  hymn.  Little  did  Clement  think  of  bells 
and  snow,  as  he  taught  it  in  his  Sunday  school  there 
in  Alexandria.  But  perhaps  to-day,  as  they  pin  up  the 
laurels  and  the  palm  in  the  chapel  at  Alexandria,  they 
are  humming  the  words,  not  thinking  of  Clement 
more  than  he  thought  of  us.  As  the  children  closed 
with 

"  Swell  the  triumphant  song 
To  Christ,  our  King," 


278  CHRISTMAS    WAITS   IN    BOSTON. 

Haliburton  came  running  out,  and  begged  me  to  bring 
them  in.  But  I  told  him,  "  No,"  as  soon  as  1  could 
hush  their  shouts  of  "  Merry  Christmas  "  ;  that  we 
had  a  long  journey  before  us,  and  must  not  alight  by 
the  way.     And  the  children  broke  out  with 

"  Hail  to  the  night, 
Hail  to  the  day/' 

rather  a  favorite,  —  quicker  and  more  to  the  childish 
taste  perhaps  than  the  other,  —  and  with  another 
"  Merry  Christmas  "  we  were  off  again. 

Off,  the  length  of  Commonwealth  Avenue,  to  where 
it  crosses  the  Brookline  branch  of  the  Mill-Dam, 
dashing  along  with  the  gayest  of  the  sleighing-parties 
as  we  came  back  into  town,  up  Chestnut  Street, 
through  Louisburg  Square ;  ran  the  sleigh  into  a 
bank  on  the  slope  of  Pinckney  Street  in  front  of  Wal- 
ter's house ;  and,  before  they  suspected  there  that 
any  one  had  come,  the  children  were  singing 

"  Carol,  carol,  Christians, 
Carol  joyfully." 

Kisses  flung  from  the  window  ;  kisses  flung  back 
from  the  street.  "  Merry  Christmas  "  again  with  * 
good- will,  and  then  one  of  the  girls  began, 

"  When  Anna  took  the  baby, 
And  pressed  his  lips  to  hers," 

and  all  of  them  fell  in  so  cheerily.  O  dear  me  I  it  is  a 
scrap  of  old  Ephrem  the  Syrian,  if  they  did  but  know 
it  I  And  when,  after  this,  Harry  would  fain  have  drivei? 


CHRISTMAS  WAITS  IN  BOSTON.  279 

on,  because  two  carols  at  one  house  was  the  rule,  how 
the  little  witches  begged  that  they  might  sing  just  one 
song  more  there,  because  Mrs.  Alexander  had  been  so 
kind  to  them,  when  she  showed  them  about  the  Ger- 
man stitches.  And  then  up  the  hill  and  over  to  the 
North  End,  and  as  far  as  we  could  get  the  horses  up 
into  Moon  Court,  that  they  might  sing  to  the  Italian 
image-man  who  gave  Lucy  the  boy  and  dog  in  plaster, 
when  she  was  sick  in  the  spring.  For  the  children 
had,  you  know,  the  choice  of  where  they  would  go,  and 
they  select  their  best  friends,  and  will  be  more  apt  to 
remember  the  Italian  image-man  than  Chrysostom 
himself,  though  Chrysostom  should  have  "  made  a  few 
remarks "  to  them  seventeen  times  in  the  chapel. 
Then  the  Italian  image-man  heard  for  the  first  time  in 

his  life 

"  Now  is  the  time  of  Christmas  come," 

and 

"  Jesus  in  his  babes  abiding." 

And  then  we  came  up  Hanover  Street  and  stopped 
under  Mr.  Gerry's  chapel,  where  they  were  dressing; 
the  walls  with  their  evergreens,  and  gave  them 

"  Hail  to  the  night, 
Hail  to  the  day  " ; 

and  so  down  State  Street  and  stopped  at  the  Ad- 
vertiser office,  because,  when  the  boys  gave  their  "  Lit- 
erary Entertainment,"  Mr.  Hale  put  in  their  adver- 
tisement for  nothing,  and  up  in  the  old  attic  there  the 
compositors  were  relieved  to  hear 


280  CHRISTMAS    WAITS   IN    BOSTON. 

"  Nor  war  nor  battle  sound," 

and 

"  The  waiting  world  was  still " ; 

bo  that  even  the  leading  editor  relaxed  from  his  grav- 
ity, and  the  "  In-General "  man  from  his  more  serious 
views,  and  the  Daily  the  next  morning  wished  every- 
body a  merry  Christmas  with  even  more  unction,  and 
resolved  that  in  coming  years  it  would  have  a  supple- 
ment, large  enough  to  contain  all  the  good  wishes. 
So  away  again  to  the  houses  of  confectioners  who  had 
given  the  children  candy,  —  to  Miss  Simonds's  house, 
because  she  had  been  so  good  to  them  in  school,  —  to 
the  palaces  of  millionnaires  who  had  prayed  for  these 
children  with  tears  if  the  children  only  knew  it,  —  to 
Dr.  Frothingham's  in  Summer  Street,  I  remember, 
where  we  stopped  because  the  Boston  Association  of 
Ministers  met  here, — and  out  on  Dover  Street  Bridge, 
that  the  poor  chair-mender  might  hear  our  carols  sung 
once  more  before  he  heard  them  better  sung  in  an 
other  world  where  nothing  needs  mending. 
"  King  of  glory,  king  of  peace !  " 
"  Hear  the  song,  and  see  the  Star ! " 

"  Welcome  be  thou,  heavenly  King ! " 
"  Was  not  Christ  our  Saviour  1 " 

and  all  the  others,  rung  out  with  order  or  without 
order,  breaking  the  hush  directly  as  the  horses'  bells 
were  stilled,  thrown  into  the  air  with  all  the  glad- 
ness of  childhood,  selected  sometimes  as  Harry 
happened   to    think    best   for  the   hearers,   but   more 


CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  281 

often  as  the  jubilant  and  uncontrolled  enthusiasm  of 
the  children  bade  them  break  out  in  the  most  joyous, 
least  studied,  and  purely  lyrical  of  all.  O,  we  went  to 
twenty  places  that  night,  I  suppose !  We  went  to  the 
grandest  places  in  Boston,  and  we  went  to  the  mean- 
est. Everywhere  they  wished  us  a  merry  Christmas, 
and  we  them.  Everywhere  a  little  crowd  gathered 
round  us,  and  then  we  dashed  away  far  enough  to 
gather  quite  another  crowd ;  and  then  back,  perhaps, 
not  sorry  to  double  on  our  steps  if  need  were,  and 
leaving  every  crowd  with  a  happy  thought  of 

"  The  star,  the  manger,  and  the  Child  ! " 

At  nine  we  brought  up  at  my  house,  D  Street,  three 
doors  from  the  corner,  and  the  children  picked  their 
very  best  for  Polly  and  my  six  little  girls  to  hear,  and 
then  for  the  first  time  we  let  them  jump  out  and  run 
in.  Polly  had  some  hot  oysters  for  them,  so  that  the 
frolic  was  crowned  with  a  treat.  There  was  a  Christ- 
mas cake  cut  into  sixteen  pieces,  wiiich  they  took  home 
to  dream  upon ;  and  then  hoods  and  muffs  on  again, 
and  by  ten  o'clock,  or  a  little  after,  we  had  all  the  girls 
and  all  the  little  ones  at  their  homes.  Four  of  the.  big 
boys,  our  two  flankers  and  Harry's  right  and  left 
hand  men,  begged  that  they  might  stay  till  the  last 
moment.  They  could  walk  back  from  the  stable,  and 
"  rather  walk  than  not,  indeed."  To  which  we  as- 
sented, having  gained  parental  permission,  as  we  left 
youngei  sisters  in  their  respective  homes. 


282  CHRISTMAS   WAIT3   IN   BOSTON. 


n. 

Lyeidas  and  I  both  thought,  as  we  went  into 
these  modest  houses,  to  leave  the  children,  to  say 
they  had  been  good  and  to  wish  a  "  Merry  Christmas" 
ourselves  to  fathers,  mothers,  and  to  guardian  aunts, 
that  the  welcome  of  those  homes  was  perhaps  the 
best  part  of  it  all.  Here  was  the  great  stout  sailor- 
boy  whom  we  had  not  seen  since  he  came  back  from 
sea.  He  was  a  mere  child  when  he  left  our  school 
years  on  years  ago,  for  the  East,  on  board  Perry's 
vessel,  and  had  been  round  the  world.  Here  was 
brave  Mrs.  Masury.  I  had  not  seen  her  since  her 
mother  died.  "  Indeed,  Mr.  Ingham,  I  got  so  used  to 
watching  then,  that  I  cannot  sleep  well  yet  o'  nights  ; 
I  wish  you  knew  some  poor  creature  that  wanted  me 
to-night,  if  it  were  only  in  memory  of  Bethlehem." 
"  You  take  a  deal  of  trouble  for  the  children,"  said 
Campbell,  as  he  crushed  my  hand  in  his  ;  "  but  you 
know  they  love  you,  and  you  know  I  would  do  as 
much  for  you  and  yours,"  —  which  I  knew  was  true. 
6*  What  can  I  send  to  your  children  ?  "  said  Dalton, 
who  was  finishing  sword-blades.  (Ill  wind  was  Fort 
Sumter,  but  it  blew  good  to  poor  Dalton,  whom  it  set 
up  in  the  world  with  his  sword-factory.)  "  Here  's  an 
old-fashioned  tape-measure  for  the  girl,  and  a  Sheffield 
wimble  for  the  boy.  What,  there  is  no  boy?  Let 
one  of  the  girls  have  it  then  ;  it  will  count  one  more 
present  for   her."      And   so   he  pressed  his   brown* 


CHEISTMAS   WAITS  IN  BOSTON.  283 

paper  parcel  into  my  hand.  From  every  House, 
though  it  were  the  humblest,  a  word  of  love,  as  sweet, 
in  truth,  as  if  we  could  have  heard  the  voice  of  angels 
singing  in  the  sky. 

I  bade  Harry  good  night ;  took  Lycidas  to  his 
lodgings,  and  gave  his  wife  my  Christmas  wishes  and 
good  night ;  and,  coming  down  to  the  sleigh  again,  gave 
way  to  the  feeling  which  I  think  you  will  all  under- 
stand, that  this  was  not  the  time  to  stop,  but  just  the 
time  to  begin.  For  the  streets  were  stiller  now,  and 
tiie  moon  brighter  than  ever,  if  possible,  and  the  bless- 
ings of  these  simple  people  and  of  the  grand  people, 
and  of  the  very  angels  in  heaven,  who  are  not  bound 
to  the  misery  of  using  words  when  they  have  anything 
worth  saying,  —  all  these  wishes  and  blessings  were 
f;ound  me,  all  the  purity  of  the  still  winter  night, 
and  I  did  n't  want  to  lose  it  all  by  going  to  bed  to 
sleep.  So  I  put  the  boys  all  together,  where  they 
could  chatter,  took  one  more  brisk  turn  on  the  two 
avenues,  and  then,  passing  through  Charles  Street,  I 
believe  I  was  even  thinking  of  Cambridge,  I  noticed 
the  lights  in  Woodhull's  house,  and,  seeing  they  were 
up,  thought  I  would  make  Fanny  a  midnight  call. 
She  came  to  the  door  herself.  I  asked  if  she  were 
waiting  for  Santa  Claus,  but  saw  in  a  moment  that  I 
must  not  joke  with  her.  She  said  she  had  hoped  I 
was  her  husband.  In  a  minute  was  one  of  those  con- 
trasts which  make  life,  life.  God  puts  us  into  the 
world  that  we  may  try  them  and  be  tried  by  them 


284  CHRISTMAS    WAITS   IN   BOSTON. 

Poor  Fanny's  mother  had  been  blocked  up  on  the 
Springfield  train  as  she  was  coming  on  to  Christmas. 
The  old  lady  had  been  chilled  through,  and  was  here 
in  bed  now  with  pneumonia.  Both  Fanny  s  children 
had  been  ailing  when  she  came,  and  this  morning  the 
doctor  had  pronounced  it  scarlet  fever.  Fanny  had 
not  undressed  herself  since  Monday,  nor  slept,  I 
thought,  in  the  same  time.  So  while  we  had  been 
singing  carols  and  wishing  merry  Christmas,  the  poor 
child  had  been  waiting,  and  hoping  that  her  husband 
or  Edward,  both  of  whom  were  on  the  tramp,  would 
find  for  her  and  bring  to  her  the  model  nurse,  who 
had  not  yet  appeared.  But  at  midnight  this  unknown 
sister  had  not  arrived,  nor  had  either  of  the  men 
returned.  When  I  rang,  Fanny  had  hoped  I  was  one 
of  them.  Professional  paragons,  dear  reader,  are  shy 
of  scarlet  fever.  I  told  the  poor  child  that  it  was 
better  as  it  was.  I  wrote  a  line  for  Sam  Perry  to  take 
to  his  aunt,  Mrs.  Masury,  in  which  I  simply  said: 
"  Dear  mamma,  I  have  found  the  poor  creature  who 
wants  you  to-night.  Come  back  in  this  carriage."  I 
bade  him  take  a  hack  at  Gates's,  where  they  were  all 
up  waiting  for  the  assembly  to  be  done  at  Papanti's. 
I  sent  him  over  to  Albany  Street ;  and  really  as  I  sat 
there  trying  to  soothe  Fanny,  it  seemed  to  me  less 
time  than  it  has  taken  to  dictate  this  little  story  about 
her,  before  Mrs.  Masury  rang  gently,  and  I  left  them, 
having  made  Fanny  promise  that  she  would  consecrate 
the  day,  which  at  that  moment  was  born,  by  trusting 


CHKISTMAS   WAITS   EN   BOSTON.  285 

(rod,  by  going  to  bed  and  going  to  sleep,  knowing 
that  her  children  were  in  much  better  hands  than 
hers.  As  I  passed  out  of  the  hall,  the  gas-light  fell 
on  a  print  of  Correggio's  Adoration,  where  Woodhull 
had  himself  written  years  before 

"  Ut  appareat  iis  qui  in  tenebris  et  umbra  mortis  positi  sunt." 

44  Darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death  "  indeed,  and 
what  light  like  the  light  and  comfort  such  a  woman  as 
my  Mary  Masury  brings ! 

And  so,  but  for  one  of  the  accidents,  as  we  call 
them,  I  should  have  dropped  the  boys  at  the  corner 
of  Dover  Street,  and  gone  home  with  my  Christmas 
lesson. 

But  it  happened,  as  we  irreverently  say,  —  it  hap- 
pened as  we  crossed  Park  Square,  so  called  from 
its  being  an  irregular  pentagon  of  which  one  of  the 
sides  has  been  taken  away,  that  I  recognized  a  tall 
man,  plodding  across  in  the  snow,  head  down,  round - 
shouldered,  stooping  forward  in  walking,  with  his 
right  shoulder  higher  than  his  left;  and  by  these  tokens 
1  knew  Tom  Coram,  prince  among  Boston  princes. 
Not  Thomas  Coram  that  built  the  Foundling  Hospital, 
though  he  was  of  Boston  too ;  but  he  was  longer 
ago.  You  must  look  for  him  in  Addison's  contribu- 
tion to  a  supplement  to  the  Spectator,  —  the  old  Spec- 
tator, I  mean,  not  the  Thursday  Spectator,  which  is 
more  recent.  Not  Thomas  Coram,  I  say,  but  Tom 
Coram,  who  would  build  a  hospital  to-morrow,  if  you 


286  CHRISTMAS   WAITS    IN    BOSTON. 

showed  him  the  need,  without  waiting  to  die  first,  and 
always  helps  forward,  as  a  prince  should,  whatever  ia 
princely,  be  it  a  statue  at  home,  a  school  in  Rich- 
mond, a  newspaper  in  Florida,  a  church  in  Exeter,  a 
steam-line  to  Liverpool,  or  a  widow  who  wants  a  hun- 
dred dollars.  I  wished  him  a  merry  Christmas,  and 
Mr.  Howland,  by  a  fine  instinct,  drew  up  the  horses 
as  I  spoke.  Coram  shook  hands ;  and,  as  it  seldom 
nappens  that  I  have  an  empty  carriage  while  he  is  on 
foot,  I  asked  him  if  I  might  not  see  him  home.  He 
was  glad  to  get  in.  We  wrapped  him  up  with  spoils 
of  the  bear,  the  fox,  and  the  bison,  turned  the  horses' 
heads  again,  —  five  hours  now  since  they  started  on 
this  entangled  errand  of  theirs,  —  and  gave  him  his 
ride.  "  I  was  thinking  of  you  at  the  moment,"  said 
Coram,  —  "  thinking  of  old  college  times,  of  the  mys- 
tery of  language  as  unfolded  by  the  Abbe  Faria  to 
Edmond  Dantes  in  the  depths  of  the  Chateau  d'If. 
T  was  wondering  if  you  could  teach  me  Japanese,  if  I 
asked  you  to  a  Christmas  dinner."  I  laughed.  Japan 
was  really  a  novelty  then,  and  I  asked  him  since  when 
he  had  been  in  correspondence  with  the  sealed  country. 
It  seemed  that  their  house  at  Shanghae  had  just  sen* 
across  there  their  agents  for  establishing  the  first  house 
in  Edomo,  in  Japan,  under  the  new  treaty.  Everything 
looked  promising,  and  the  beginnings  were  made  for 
the  branch  which  has  since  become  Dot  and  Trevilyan 
there.  Of  this  he  had  the  first  tidings  in  his  letters 
by   the  mail  of  that   afternoon.      John    Coram,    his 


CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  287 

brother,  had  written  to  him,  and  had  said  that  he 
enclosed  for  his  amusement  the  Japanese  bill  of  par- 
ticulars, as  it  had  been  drawn  out,  on  which  they  had 
founded  their  orders  for  the  first  assorted  cargo  ever 
to  be  sent  from  America  to  Edomo.  Bill  of  particulars 
there  was,  stretching  down  the  long  tissue-paper  in 
exquisite  chirography.  But  by  some  freak  of  the  "total 
depravity  of  things,"  the  translated  order  for  the  as- 
sorted cargo  was  not  there.  John  Coram,  in  his  care 
to  fold  up  the  Japanese  writing  nicely,  had  left  on  his 
own  desk  at  Shanghae  the  more  intelligible  English. 
"And  so  I  must  wait,"  said  Tom  philosophically,  "till 
the  next  East  India  mail  for  my  orders,  certain  that 
seven  English  houses  have  had  less  enthusiastic  and 
philological  correspondents  than  my  brother." 

I  said  I  did  not  see  that.  That  I  could  not  teach 
him  to  speak  the  Taghalian  dialects  so  well,  that  he 
could  read  them  with  facility  before  Saturday.  But  I 
co  aid  do  a  good  deal  better.  Did  he  remember  writ- 
ing a  note  to  old  Jack  Percival  for  me  five  years  ago? 
No,  he  remembered  no  such  thing ;  he  knew  Jack 
Percival,  but  never  wrote  a  note  to  him  in  his  life. 
Did  he  remember  giving  me  fifty  dollars,  because  I 
had  taken  a  delicate  boy,  whom  I  was  going  to  send 
to  sea,  and  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  with  the  govern- 
ment outfit  ?  No,  he  did  not  remember  that,  which 
was  not  strange,  for  that  was  a  thing  he  was  doing 
every  day,  "  Well,  I  don't  care  how  much  you  re- 
member, but  the  boy  about  whom  you  wrote  to  Jack 


288  CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN   BOSTON. 

Percival,  for  whose  mother's  ease  of  mind  you  pro- 
vided the  half-hundred,  is  back  again,  —  strong, 
straight,  and  well ,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  he  had 
the  whole  charge  of  Perry's  commissariat  on  shore  at 
Yokohama,  was  honorably  discharged  out  there,  reads 
Japanese  better  than  you  read  English ;  and  if  it 
will  help  you  at  all,  he  shall  be  here  at  your  house  at 
breakfast."  For  as  I  spoke  we  stopped  at  Ooram's 
door.  "Ingham,"  said  Coram,  "if  you  were  not  a 
parson,  I  should  say  you  were  romancing."  "  My 
child,"  said  I,  "  I  sometimes  write  a  parable  for  the 
Atlantic  ;  but  the  words  of  my  lips  are  verity,  as  all 
those  of  the  Sandemanians.  Go  to  bed  ;  do  not  even 
dream  of  the  Taghalian  dialects ;  be  sure  that  the  Japa~ 
nese  interpreter  will  breakfast  with  you,  and  the  next 
time  you  are  in  a  scrape  send  for  the  nearest  minister 
George,  tell  your  brother  Ezra  that  Mr.  Coram  wishes 
him  to  breakfast  here  to-morrow  morning  at  eight 
o'clock  ;  don't  forget  the  number,  Pemberton  Square, 
you  know."  "  Yes,  sir,"  said  George ;  and  Thomas 
Coram  laughed,  said  "Merry  Christmas,"  and  we 
parted. 

It  was  time  we  were  all  in  bed,  especially  these  boys. 
But  glad  enough  am  I  as  I  write  these  words  that  the 
meeting  of  Coram  set  us  back  that  dropped-stitch  in 
our  night's  journey.  There  was  one  more  delay. 
We  were  sweeping  by  the  Old  State  House,  the  boys 
singing  again,  "  Carol,  carol,  Christians,"  as  we  dashed 
along  the  still  streets,  when  I  caught  sight  of  Adams 


CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN    BOSTON.  289 

Tcdd,  and  he  recognized  me.  He  had  heard  us  sing- 
ing when  we  were  at  the  Advertiser  office.  Todd  is 
an  old  fellow-apprentice  of  mine,  —  and  he  is  now,  or 
rather  was  that  night,  chief  pressman  in  the  Argus 
office.  I  like  the  Argus  people,  —  it  was  there  that  I 
was  South  American  Editor,  now  many  years  ago,  — 
and  they  befriend  me  to  this  hour.  Todd  hailed  me, 
and  once  more  I  stopped.  "  What  sent  you  out 
from  your  warm  steam-boiler  ?  "  "  Steam-boiler,  in- 
deed," said  Todd.  "  Two  rivets  loose,  —  steam-room 
full  of  steam, — police  frightened, — neighborhood  in 
a  row,  —  and  we  had  to  put  out  the  fire.  She  would 
have  run  a  week  without  hurting  a  fly,  —  only  a  little 
puff  in  the  street  sometimes.  But  there  we  are,  Ing- 
ham. We  shall  lose  the  early  mail  as  it  stands.  Sev 
enty-eight  tokens  to  be  worked  now."  They  always 
talked  largely  of  their  edition  at  the  Argus.  Saw  it 
with  many  eyes,  perhaps  ;  but  this  time,  I  am  sure, 
Todd  spoke  true.  I  caught  his  idea  at  once.  In 
younger  and  more  muscular  times,  Todd  and  I  had 
worked  the  Adams  press  by  that  fly-wheel  for  full 
five  minutes  at  a  time,  as  a  test  of  strength  ;  and  in 
my  mind's  eye,  I  saw  that  he  was  printing  his  paper 
at  this  moment  with  relays  of  grinding  stevedores. 
He  said  it  was  so.  "  But  think  of  it  to-night,"  said 
he.  "  It  is  Christmas  eve,  and  not  an  Irishman  to 
be  hired,  though  one  paid  him  ingots.  Not  a  man 
can  stand  the  grind  ten  minutes."  I  knew  that  very 
well  from  old  experience,  and  I  thanked  him  inwardly 

13 


290  CHKISTMAS   WAITS   IN    BOSTON. 

for  not  saying  u  the  demnition  grind,"  with  Mantilmi. 
"  We  cannot  run  the  press  half  the  time,"  said  he ; 
"  and  the  men  we  have  are  giving  out  now.  We 
shall  lose  all  our  carrier  delivery."  "  Todd,"  said  I, 
•4  is  this  a  night  to  be  talking  of  ingots,  or  hiring,  or 
losing,  or  gaining  ?  When  will  you  learn  that  Love 
rules  the  court,  the  camp,  and  the  Argus  office.  And 
I  wrote  on  the  back  of  a  letter  to  Campbell :  "  Come 
to  the  Argus  office,  No.  2  Dassett's  Alley,  with  seven 
men  not  afraid  to  work  "  ;  and  I  gave  it  to  John  and 
Sam,  bade  Howland  take  the  boys  to  Campbell's 
house, —  walked  down  with  Todd  to  his  office,  —  chal- 
lenged him  to  take  five  minutes  at  the  wheel,  in  mem 
ory  of  old  times,  —  made  the  tired  relays  laugh  a3 
they  saw  us  take  hold  ;  and  then,  —  when  I  had  cooled 
off,  and  put  on  my  Cardigan,  —  met  Campbell,  with 
his  seven  sons  of  Anak,  tumbling  down  the  stairs, 
wondering  what  round  of  mercy  the  parson  had  found 
for  them  this  time.  I  started  home,  knowing  I  should 
now  have  my  Argus  with  my  coffee. 


in. 

And  so  I  walked  home.     Better  so,  perhaps,  aftei 
all,  than  in  the  lively  sleigh,  with  the  tinkling  bells. 

"  It  was  a  calm  and  silent  night !  — 

Seven  hundred  years  and  fifty-three 
Had  Rome  been  growing  up  to  might, 
And  now  was  ^jueen  of  land  and  seal 


CHRISTMAS    WAITS   IN    BOSTON.  291 

No  sound  was  heard  of  clashing  wars,  — 
Peace  hrooded  o'er  the  hushed  domain ; 
Apollo,  Pallas,  Jove,  and  Mars 

Held  undisturbed  their  ancient  reign 
In  the  solemn  midnight, 

Centuries  ago ! " 

What  an  eternity  it  seemed  since  I  started  with 
ihose  children  singing  carols.  Bethlehem,  Nazareth, 
Calvary,  Rome,  Roman  senators,  Tiberius,  Paul, 
Nero,  Clement,  Ephrem,  Ambrose,  and  all  the  singers, 
—  Vincent  de  Paul,  and  all  the  loving  wonder- 
workers, Milton  and  Herbert  and  all  the  carol-writers, 
Luther  and  Knox  and  all  the  prophets,  —  what  a 
world  of  people  had  been  keeping  Christmas  with 
Sam  Perry  and  Lycidas  and  Harry  and  me  ;  and 
here  were  Yokohama  and  the  Japanese,  the  Daily 
Argus  and  its  ten  million  tokens  and  their  readers,  — 
poor  Fanny  Woodhull  and  her  sick  mother  there, 
keeping  Christmas  too  I  For  a  finite  world,  these  are 
a  good  many  "  waits  "  to  be  singing  in  one  poor  fel- 
low's ears  on  one  Christmas-tide. 

"  'T  was  in  the  calm  and  silent  night !  — 
The  senator  of  haughty  Rome, 
Impatient  urged  his  chariot's  flight, 
From  lordly  revel,  rolling  home. 
Triumphal  arches  gleaming  swell 

His  breast,  with  thoughts  of  boundless  sway 
What  recked  the  Roman  what  befell 
A  paltry  province  far  away, 
Id  the  solemn  midnight, 
Centuries  ago ! 


292  CHRISTMAS    WAITS    IN    BOSTON. 

"  Within  that  province  far  away 

Went  plodding  home  a  weary  boor ; 
A  streak  of  light  before  him  lay, 

Fallen  through  a  half-shut  stable  door 
Across  his  path.     He  passed,  —  for  naught 

Told  what  was  going  on  within  ; 
How  keen  the  stars,  his  only  thought, 
The  air  how  calm  and  cold  and  thin, 
In  the  solemn  midnight, 

Centuries  ago  !  " 

"  Streak  of  light  "  —  Is  there  a  light  in  Lycidas's 
room  ?  They  not  in  bed  !  That  is  making  a  night  of 
it  I  Well,  there  are  few  hours  of  the  day  or  night 
when  I  have  not  been  in  Lycidas's  room,  so  I  let  my- 
self in  by  the  night-key  he  gave  me,  ran  up  the  stairs, 
—  it  is  a  horrid  seven-storied,  first-class  lodging-house. 
For  my  part,  I  had  as  lief  live  in  a  steeple.  Two 
flights  I  ran  up,  two  steps  at  a  time,  —  I  was  younger 
then  than  I  am  now,  — pushed  open  the  door  which 
was  ajar,  and  saw  such  a  scene  of  confusion  as  I  nevei 
saw  in  Mary's  over-nice  parlor  before.  Queer  !  I 
remember  the  first  thing  that  I  saw  was  wrong  waa 
a  great  ball  of  white  German  worsted  on  the  floor. 
Her  basket  was  upset.  A  great  Christmas-tree  lay 
across  the  rug,  quite  too  high  for  the  room ;  a  large 
sharp-pointed  Spanish  clasp-knife  was  by  it,  with 
which  they  had  been  lopping  it ;  there  were  two 
immense  baskets  of  white  papered  presents,  both  up- 
set ;  but  what  frightened  me  most  was  the  centre- 
table.  Three  or  four  handkerchiefs  on  it,  —  towels, 
napkins,  I  know  not  what,  —  all  brown  and  red  and 


CHRISTMAS  WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  293 

almost  black  with  blood !  I  turned,  heart-sick,  to 
look  into  the  bedroom,  —  and  I  really  had  a  sense  of 
relief  when  I  saw  somebody.  Bad  enough  it  was, 
however.  Lycidas,  but  just  now  so  strong  and  well, 
lay  pale  and  exhausted  on  the  bloody  bed,  with  the 
clothing  removed  from  his  right  thigh  and  leg,  while 
over  him  bent  Mary  and  Morton.  I  learned  after- 
wards that  poor  Lycidas,  while  trimming  the  Christ- 
mas-tree, and  talking  merrily  with  Mary  and  Morton, 

—  who,  by  good  luck,  had  brought  round  his  presents 
late,  and  was  staying  to  tie  on  glass  balls  and  apples, 

—  had  given  himself  a  deep  and  dangerous  wound 
with  the  point  of  the  unlucky  knife,  and  had  lost  a 
great  deal  of  blood  before  the  hemorrhage  could  be 
controlled.  Just  before  I  entered,  the  stick  tourniquet 
which  Morton  had  improvised  had  slipped  in  poor 
Mary's  unpractised  hand,  at  the  moment  he  was  about 
to  secure  the  bleeding  artery,  and  the  blood  followed 
in  such  a  gush  as  compelled  him  to  give  his  whole 
attention  to  stopping  its  flow.  He  only  knew  my 
entrance  by  the  "  Ah,  Mr.  Ingham,"  of  the  frightened 
Irish  girl,  who  stood  useless  behind  the  head  of  the  bed. 

"  O  Fred,"  said  Morton,  without  looking  up,  "  1 
am  glad  you  are  here." 

"  And  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  " 

u  Some  whiskey,  —  first  of  all." 

"  There  are  two  bottles,"  said  Mary,  who  was  hold- 
ing the  candle,  — "  in  the  cupboard  behind  his  dresa 
ing-  glass." 


294  CHRISTMAS   WAITS    IN   BOSTON. 

I  took  Bridget  with  me,  struck  a  light  in  the  dress- 
ing-room (how  she  blundered  about  the  match),  and 
found  the  cupboard  door  locked !  Key  doubtless  in 
Mary's  pocket,  —  probably  in  pocket  of  "  another 
dress."  I  did  not  ask.  Took  my  own  bunch,  willed 
tremendously  that  my  account-book  drawer  key  should 
govern  the  lock,  and  it  did.  If  it  had  not,  I  should 
have  put  my  fist  through  the  panels.  Bottle  of  bed- 
bug poison  ;  bottle  marked  "  bay  rum  "  ;  another  bottle 
with  no  mark  ;  two  bottles  of  Saratoga  water.  "  Set 
them  all  on  the  floor,  Bridget."  A  tall  bottle  of 
Cologne.  Bottle  marked  in  MS.  What  in  the 
world  is  it  ?  "  Bring  that  candle,  Bridget."  "  Eau 
destill^e.  Marron,  Montreal."  What  in  the  world 
did  Lycidas  bring  distilled  water  from  Montreal  for? 
And  then  Morton's  clear  voice  in  the  other  room, 
"  As  quick  as  you  can,  Fred."  "  Yes !  in  one  moment. 
Put  all  these  on  the  floor,  Bridget."  Here  they  are 
at  last.  "  Bourbon  whiskey."    "  Corkscrew,  Bridget." 

u  Indade,  sir,  and  where  is  it  ?  "  "  Where  ?  I 
don't  know.  Run  down  as  quick  as  you  can,  and 
bring  it.  His  wife  cannot  leave  him."  So  Bridget 
ran,  and  the  first  I  heard  was  the  rattle  as  she  pitched 
down  the.  last  six  stairs  of  the  first  flight  headlong. 
Let  us  hope  she  has  not  broken  her  leg.  I  meanwhile 
am  driving  a  silver  pronged  fork  into  the  Bourbon 
corks,  and  the  blade  of  my  own  penknife  on  the  other 
side. 

"  Now,  Fred,"  from  George  within.     (We  all  call 


CHKISTMAS    WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  295 

Morton  "  George.")  "  Yes,  in  one  moment,,,  1 
replied.  Penknife  blade  breaks  off,  fork  pulls  ri^rht 
out,  two  crumbs  of  cork  come  with  it.  Will  that  girl 
never  come  ? 

I  turned  round;  I  found  a  goblet  on  the  wash- 
stand  ;  I  took  Lycidas's  heavy  clothes-brush,  and 
knocked  off  the  neck  of  the  bottle.  Did  you  ever  do 
it,  reader,  with  one  of  those  pressed  glass  bottles  they 
make  now  ?  It  smashed  like  a  Prince  Rupert's  drop 
in  my  hand,  crumbled  into  seventy  pieces,  —  a  nasty 
smell  of  whiskey  on  the  floor,  —  and  I,  holding  just 
the  hard  bottom  of  the  thing  with  two  large  spikes 
running  worthless  up  into  the  air.  But  I  seized  the 
goblet,  poured  into  it  what  was  left  in  the  bottom,  and 
carried  it  in  to  Morton  as  quietly  as  I  could.  He  bade 
me  give  Lycidas  as  much  as  he  could  swallow ;  then 
showed  me  how  to  substitute  my  thumb  for  his,  and 
compress  the  great  artery.  When  he  was  satisfied  that 
he  could  trust  me,  he  began  his  work  again,  silently ; 
just  speaking  what  must  be  said  to  that  brave  Mary, 
who  seemed  to  have  three  hands  because  he  needed 
them.  When  all  was  secure,  he  glanced  at  the 
ghastly  white  face,  with  beads  of  perspiration  on  the 
forehead  and  upper  lip,  laid  his  finger  on  the  pulse, 
and  said :  "  We  will  have  a  little  more  whiskey.  No, 
Mary,  you  are  overdone  already ;  let  Fred  bring  it.'" 
The  truth  was  that  poor  Mary  was  almost  as  white  as 
Lycidas.  She  would  not  faint,  —  that  was  the  only 
reason  she  did  not,  —  and  at  the  moment  I  wondered 


296  CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN    BOSTON. 

that  she  did  not  fall.  I  believe  George  and  1  were  both 
expecting  it,  now  the  excitement  was  over.  He  called 
her  Mary  and  me  Fred,  because  we  were  all  together 
every  day  of  our  lives.  Bridget,  you  see,  was  still 
nowhere. 

So  I  retired  for  my  whiskey  again,  —  to  attack. thai 
other  bottle.  George  whispered  quickly  as  I  went, 
"  Bring  enough,  —  bring  the  bottle."  Did  he  want 
the  bottle  corked?  Would  that  Kelt  ever  come  up 
stairs  ?  I  passed  the  bell-rope  as  I  went  into  the 
dressing-room,  and  rang  as  hard  as  I  could  ring.  I 
took  the  other  bottle,  and  bit  steadily  with  my  teeth 
at  the  cork,  only,  of  course,  to  wrench  the  end  of  it 
off.  George  called  me,  and  I  stepped  back.  "  No," 
said  he,  "  bring  your  whiskey." 

Mary  had  just  rolled  gently  back  on  the  floor.  I 
went  again  in  despair.  But  I  heard  Bridget's  step 
this  time.  First  flight,  first  passage  ;  second  flight, 
second  passage.  She  ran  in  in  triumph  at  length, 
with  a  screw-driver  ! 

"  No  !  "  I  whispered,  —  "  no.  The  crooked  thing 
you  draw  corks  with,"  and  I  showed  her  the  bottle 
again.  u  Find  one  somewhere  and  don't  come  back 
without  it."     So  she  vanished  for  the  second  time. 

"  Frederic !  "  said  Morton.  I  think  he  never  called 
me  so  before.  Should  I  risk  the  clothes-brush  again  ? 
I  opened  Lycidas's  own  drawers,  —  papers,  boxes, 
everything  in  order,  —  not  a  sign  of  a  tool. 

"Frederic!"      "Yes,"  I   said.      But  why  did  J 


CHRISTMAS   WAITS   EN    BOSTON.  297 

«ay  "  Yes  "  ?      "  Father  of  Mercy,  tell   me  what  to 
<io." 

And  my  mazed  eyes,  dim  with  tears,  —  did  you  ever 
shed  tears  from  excitement  ?  —  fell  on  an  old  razor-strop 
of  those  days   of  shaving,  made  by  C.  Whittaker, 
SHEFFIELD.     The  "  Sheffield  "stood  in  black  Lit 
ters  out  from  the  rest  like  a  vision.     They  make  cork 
screws  in  Sheffield  too.     If  this  Whittaker  had  only 
made  a  corkscrew  !     And  what  is  a  u  Sheffield  wim 
ble  ?  " 

Hand  in  my  pocket,  —  brown  paper  parcel. 

"  Where  are  you,  Frederic  ?  "  "  Yes,"  said  I,  foi 
the  last  time.  Twine  off!  brown  paper  off.  And  ] 
learned  that  the  "  Sheffield  wimble "  was  one  of 
those  things  whose  name  you  never  heard  before, 
which  people  sell  you  in  Thames  Tunnel,  where  a 
hoof-cleaner,  a  gimlet,  a  screw-driver,  and  a  cork- 
screw fold  into   one   handle. 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  again.  "  Pop,"  said  the  cork 
"  Bubble,  bubble,  bubble,"  said  the  whiskey.  Bottle 
in  one  hand,  full  tumbler  in  the  other,  I  walked  in. 
George  poured  half  a  tumblorful  down  Lycidas's 
throat  that  time.  Nor  do  I  dare  say  how  much  he 
poured  down  afterwards.  I  found  that  there  was  need 
of  it,  from  what  he  said  of  the  pulse,  when  it  was  all 
uver.     I  guess  Mary  had  some,  too. 

This  was  the  turning-point.  He  was  exceedingly 
weak,  and  we  sat  by  him  in  turn  through  the  night, 
giving,  at  short  intervals,  stimulants   and  such  food  as 

13* 


298  CHRISTMAS   WAITS   IN    BOSTON. 

he  could  swallow  easily  ;  for  I  remember  Morton  was 
very  particular  not  to  raise  his  head  more  than  we 
could  help.     But  there  was  no  real  danger  after  this. 

As  we  turned  away  from  the  house  on  Christmas 
morning,  —  I  to  preach  and  he  to  visit  his  patients,  — 
he  said  to  me,  "  Did  you  make  that  whiskey  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  I,  "  but  poor  Dod  Dalton  had  to  furnish 
the  corkscrew." 

And  I  went  down  to  the  chapel  to  preach.  The 
sermon  had  been  lying  ready  at  home  on  my  desk,  — 
and  Polly  had  brought  it  round  to  me,  — for  there  had 
been  no  time  for  me  to  go  from  Lycidas's  home  to  D 
Street  and  to  return.  There  was  the  text,  all  as  it 
was  the  day  before  :  — 

"  They  helped  every  one  his  neighhor,  and  every  one  said  to  Ms 
brother  Be  of  good  courage.  So  the  carpenter  encouraged  the  gold- 
smith, and  he  that  smootheth  with  the  hammer  him  that  smote  the 
anvil." 

And  there  were  the  pat  illustrations,  as  I  had  fin 
ished  them  yesterday;  of  the  comfort  Mary  Magda- 
len gave  Joanna,  the  court  lady ;  and  the  comfort 
the  court  lady  gave  Mary  Magdalen,  after  the  media- 
tor of  a  new  covenant  had  mediated  between  them  ; 
how  Simon  the  Cyrenian,  and  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thea,  and  the  beggar  Bartimeus  comforted  each  other, 
gave  each  other  strength,  common  force,  com-fort, 
when  the  One  Life  flowed  in  all  their  veins  ;  how 
on  board  the  ship  the  Tent-Maker  proved  to  be  Cap- 
tain, and  the    Centurion  learned   his  duty    from    hi* 


CHRISTMAS    WAITS   IN   BOSTON.  299 

Prisoner,  and  how  they  "  All  came  safe  to  shore,"  be- 
cause the  New  Life  was  there.  But  as  I  preached,  1 
caught  Frye's  eye.  Frye  is  always  critical  ;  and  I 
said  to  myself,  "  Frye  would  not  take  his  illustrations 
from  eighteen  hundred  years  ago."  And  I  saw  dear 
old  Dod  Dalton  trying  to  keep  awake,  and  Campbell 
hard  asleep  after  trying,  and  Jane  Masury  looking 
round  to  see  if  her  mother  did  not  come  in  ;  and  Ezra 
Sheppard,  looking,  not  so  much  at  me,  as  at  the  win- 
dow beside  me,  as  if  his  thoughts  were  the  other  side 
of  the  world.  And  I  said  to  them  all,  "  O,  if  I  could 
tell  you,  my  friends,  what  every  twelve  hours  of  my 
life  tells  me,  —  of  the  way  in  which  woman  helps  wo- 
man, and  man  helps  man,  when  only  the  ice  is  broken, 
—  how  we  are  all  rich  so  soon  as  we  find  out  that  we 
are  all  brothers,  and  how  we  are  all  in  want,  unless 
we  can  call  at  any  moment  for  a  brother's  hand,  — 
then  I  could  make  you  understand  something,  in  the 
lives  you  lead  every  day,  of  what  the  New  Covenant, 
the  New  Commonwealth,  the  New  Kingdom  is  to  bo." 

But  I  did  not  dare  tell  Dod  Dalton  what  Campbell 
had  been  doing  for  Todd,  nor  did  I  dare  tell  Camp- 
bell by  what  unconscious  arts  old  Dod  had  been  help- 
ing Lycidas.  Perhaps  the  sermon  would  have  been 
better  had  I  done  so. 

But,  when  we  had  our  tree  in  the  evening  at  home, 
1  did  tell  all  this  story  to  Poiiy  and  the  bairns,  and  I 
gave  Alice  her  measuring-tape,  — precious  with  a  spot 
of  Lycidas's  blood,  —  and  Bertha  her  Sheffield  wimble 


300  CHRISTMAS  WAITS   IN   BOSTON. 

"  Papa,"  said  old  Clara,  who  is  the  next  child,  M  all 
the  people  gave  presents,  did  not  they,  as  they  did 
in  the  picture  in  your  study  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  though  they  did  not  all  know  they 
were  giving  them." 

"  Why  do  they  not  give  such  presents  every  day  ?  " 
said  Clara. 

u  O  child,"  I  said,  "  it  is  only  for  thirty-six  hours 
of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days,  that  all  peo- 
ple remember  that  they  are  all  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  those  are  the  hours  that  we  call,  therefore,  Christ- 
mas eve  and  Christmas  day." 

"  And  when  they  always  remember  it,"  said  Bertha, 
"  it  will  be  Christmas  all  the  time  !     What  fun  !  " 

"  What  fun,  to  be  sure ;  but  Clara,  what  is  in  the 
picture  ?  " 

"  Why,  an  old  woman  has  brought  eggs  to  the  baby 
in  the  manger,  and  an  old  man  has  brought  a  sheep. 
I  suppose  they  all  brought  what  they  had." 

"  I  suppose  those  who  came  from  Sharon  brought 
roses,"  said  Bertha.  And  Alice,  who  is  eleven,  and 
goes  to  the  Lincoln  School,  and  therefore  knows  every- 
thing, said,  "  Yes,  and  the  Damascus  people  brought 
Damascus  wimbles." 

"  This  is  certain,"  said  Polly,  "  that  nobody  tried  to 
give  a  straw,  but  the  straw,  if  he  really  gave  it,  carried 
a  blessing." 


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